Chapter 9: Back to Basics

I peeled my eyelids apart, and then shut them as bright light assaulted them. I was still on the medical bed…but I knew I had been moved around a bit. The sheets had been changed and my clothes as well. I tried to turn my head and felt sore in every joint. My lungs no longer burned though…that was a good sign, right?

On the far side of the bay, a man in the greyish lab-coat of a Traveler doctor was standing near a console and checking things. Then suddenly, Elizabeth was by my side, her holographic self simply appearing in a swirl of white light. She stared at me arms crossed silently for a while.

"Ow." I said finally. She tried to hide her smile, but it bled through anyway.

"Feeling all better?" she asked, obviously trying to sound annoyed. The doctor in the background turned to see her.

"Vital signs are stable. He's in no further danger, though he'll probably feel sore for a while…" the man said, brushing back his black hair.

"Good, good, now go somewhere else, I need to talk to him." Elizabeth said, waving him away without turning around. The man looked mildly offended, but nodded and bowed out, closing the med-bay doors behind him. Apart from us, the room was totally empty, though not entirely silent. I could hear people walking by the room in the hallway outside.

"Now, I think you and I need to talk, Aiden. ", she said, sitting down on a chair that had magically appeared next to her…magically in the context of holograms that is...

I opened my lips, happy they were feeling a bit better than the last time I used them.

"There was no other way." I said, no longer having to hiss or wheeze from a sore, swollen throat.

"I understand that…but I wanted to tell you…" Elizabeth started. Then she paused.

For a long while we both said nothing.

"I need you to know…you can't keep doing this." she finally said.

"Keep doing what?" I asked, She glared at me.

"One of these days, you're going to rush into a situation where I can't help you and you won't come out alive." she said coldly.

"What, you think I have some kind of death wish?" I snorted.

"Maybe just a little…" she shot back sarcastically.

"I have no such thing." I grunted.

"Let me lay it out straight for you, because I've been there. In fact, I am there, Aiden." she said. She stood up and began to pace at the foot of my bed.

"You run off under the influence of an alien drug. When, by some mad chance, you realize what you've done, and what it made you do to your friends, how you've hurt them because of it, you feel a lot of shame, shame that's totally unwarranted. Out of this misplaced shame, you try to sacrifice yourself for them, but at the last moment, you decide you want to keep living. So you make an escape. You get lucky and meet some monks who can get you off the drugs, but the shame's still there. It's getting worse." she started to say.

"If you're going somewhere with this, please tell me." I growled. Elizabeth stopped,

"Y'know what, you're right. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not qualified to be talking to you about this…but I can still take a hint." she said furiously. She unfolded her arms and laced her fingers together in front of her face.

"You want to go home…but you can't do it like you are. You have to prove to yourself that you're not the person the drug made you into. You have to come home a hero or not at all. And you can't go home, because home is a galaxy away. "she said, "So you start raising the stakes, becoming more and more careless with your own life, because there's nothing left but to go out in a blaze of glory"

"That's crazy." I spat.

"No?" she said, "Then what about the time you got into a mind war with that Wraith Queen? Or the time before than when you tried to take on the whole Quindosim brotherhood yourself? And the time before that, when you hunted down that rogue Genii, Ados, for Ladon? Tell me there's not a pattern of failed suicide attempts stretching from here to Amaluuk." Elizabeth continued. I propped myself up on the pillows behind me as she came to stand by the side of my bed.

"Ados nearly killed you…twice. The Brotherhood did the same nearly a dozen times in as many hours." Elizabeth said.

"I had a job to do." I grunted.

"I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about me." she said, raising her voice in anger. That got my attention.

"You pulled me out of space and when you found my Replicator body was breaking down, you trusted me enough to give me a second chance, even after what I told you, and put me in this ship. I've helped run it practically since the days when the paint was still fresh on the walls." she said. Then her voice softened somewhat.

"I don't know whether you know it or not, but you, me, Kiryk, the crew…we're like a team…more than a team, a family. And you are the only person from the Milky Way left in this entire galaxy that I can still talk to. I'm not saying I love you. Some days I can hardly stand you. But without you, I'd be alone in the void with a bunch of dying machines. And if you had died…I don't know what I would have done." she said. I could see a few tears on her illusionary face.

My mouth hung open. Elizabeth had always been mostly a silent companion, or a tactical advisor, hell, even a diplomatic teacher to me. But I had never thought about what my kindness had meant to her, or what it meant to be a stranger in a strange land. I had always been so focused on the job, on fulfilling the missions I had set for myself, on saving people that I guess I had never really had time to consider my motives. I could've gone back to Atlantis after the Hidden had helped cure me, but she was right. The shame I had felt had filled my mind. I had imagined going home to an honorable discharge and spending the rest of my life feeling in adequate. I couldn't take that.

So I had gone on my long journey that had brought me the Ascension, the respect of many worlds, vital knowledge, victory against the Wraith, ZPMs, powerful technology and all sorts of boons. And when I thought I was ready I had gone back to Atlantis…only to find it wasn't there, that it had left long ago and stranded me here. So I had decided to try and do even better, rise even higher, but most of all, to keep doing what I had already been doing because there was nowhere to go. I had done all this, decided all this without realizing it…and not once had I wondered what it might be doing to the one friend from my old life that I still had with me.

I looked over at Elizabeth who stared back sternly, yet with tears in her eyes.

"I…I'm sorry." I finally said, looking down. She put her hand on my shoulder.

"There's nothing to be sorry for." she said, a smile breaking through the stern look, "I just want you to understand…there's still hope. Don't give up. We'll find a way home."

"Who knows, we might've just found it with these guys." she said, chuckling. I smiled. I felt better, relieved somewhat. I tried to remember her words. There was still hope. I would find a way…and I'd come home to where I belonged: Atlantis. She patted my shoulder, though since she was a hologram, I felt nothing.

"Now come on, up and out of bed. There're people waiting to talk to you." she said.

I levered myself out of the bed and onto legs that hadn't walked in two weeks according to Elizabeth. They were pretty wobbly to say the least, but got better as I used them more. The medical machines had prevented any atrophy and fixed me up as best they could. I was still dressed in a set of white hospital clothes, which I traded for a set of handmade ones from a village I had saved years back that had been sitting folded neatly next to the bed. The fabric was a little worn, but still good. My uniform and coat were elsewhere, having been put back in my wardrobe. Actually, my uniform was toast, I learned as I listened to Elizabeth, but the coat had survived perfectly. The uniform in my wardrobe was a replacement from Larrin…who was onboard.

That made me speed up dressing. Larrin was a not a woman to be kept waiting. As I dressed and made myself presentable, Elizabeth explained. Jeremiah had gone immediately to New Grondia with a group of Athosians, where Larrin had been more than happy to supply food and drugs in exchange for the coordinates of the Delphi. It also became clear that Elizabeth had done a little extra dealing while I was asleep on her own. She explained that Larrin had been hesitant to give out a refit and resupply in exchange for the other two ships I had been saving up, at the mention of the strange new beings on New Athos, she had agreed to it as long as a meeting with them was added to the deal. Since then, the Ascension had become a hive, buzzing with Traveler diplomats, scientists and workers. They all wanted to talk to the Cybertronians and study their technology, as well as that of the crashed ship.

Anyone else might've been annoyed or angry at all this, but Elizabeth and I had long ago come to the agreement that she was to assume command whenever I was incapacitated, unreachable or otherwise out of the picture. Kiryk would remain first officer on all occasions, and followed her orders and he followed mine. As I slipped on what Elizabeth told was a cast for my mangled arm, which now looked hideously melted and bony beneath a layer of bandages, she continued to speak.

Deadfall had sent several small (read 'only seven or eight feet tall') ex-Decepticons to see me and take measurements of my damaged arm in my long periods of sleep, with no explanation given. That made me suspicious. What would she possibly want with my arm? Was she going to try and replace it? I shrugged the strap of the cast over my shoulder, feeling only a dull throbbing as I did so. The pain would probably always be there now. I'd just have to get used to it…

"So the refit is amazingly almost complete. Larrin has been putting a lot into us, mostly because of the Autobots I think. They're getting along quite well with the Travelers…maybe because they have a lot in common, what with being stuck in space for thousands of years…" Elizabeth finished. I grunted in amusement, and then thought back to Elita's 'gift' to Deadfall.

"They said they were decoding the databanks of that ship…" I began to say.

"They were. No luck so far. This character Shockwave did a real number on the hardware. As for the ship, a lot of it has been stripped down by now. The Travelers and Autobots are working on it. Pretty advanced stuff…" she said in response.

"So we still have no idea what's going on." I said. Elizabeth shrugged apologetically.

"Not really, no. Larrin is waiting in the conference room to talk to you. She said she's got some important information to impart on the state of the galaxy. Wouldn't tell me what they were. She said she'd only talk to you."

"Well I guess I'd better see her then." I said rolling my eyes. I slipped into some comfy shoes that had been waiting on top of clothes next to the bed and began to my journey, unsteadily at first, but with increasing strength, across the Ascension to meet my long-time benefactor.

Larrin was a woman with fiery red curly hair and a temperament to match. She was my contact with the Traveler leadership and head of their new military. Her coming here represented a huge breach of protocol…but Larrin made her own protocol.

As I entered the conference room, she looked up from a stack of transparent plastic sheets the Travelers used as a paper substitute and watched as a stumped through the door, limping a little. There were still little twinges of pain all over, but all well within controllable ranges. We stared at each other across the stainless-steel conference table in silence for about twenty seconds until I spoke.

"You're in my seat." I said, giving the Traveler a serious look. She returned it with one of her own.

"Really?" she said, "I hadn't noticed." We went on staring until I gave in. My serious face collapsed into a grin.

"You have no idea how good it is to see you." I said.

"I'll bet you say that to all the girls." she shot back, also grinning. I burst out laughing. She joined in. Behind me, Elizabeth's hologram just rolled her eyes. As the laughter died off, I sank into the chair opposite Larrin and drew my hand across my face before trying to restore a little formality.

"Honestly, though. I have no idea if things would be in the shape they are right now if you hadn't showed up." I said.

"Anything for you." chuckled Larrin.

"Oh, I bet you say that to all the boys." I snorted. We both exploded with laughter again. It took us two who minutes to calm down. Normally, anyone who spoke like that to Larrin suffered instant death, no muss or fuss. But I had done enough to help her and her people that I had earned it.

"Anyway, Elizabeth said you had something to say to me. You wanted to catch me up on current events?" I said, finally quelling the last bits of laughter. Larrin slid some of the transparent 'papers' over to my end of the table for me to see.

"Since we last met, things have been moving at a pretty high speed. The resettlement and restoration of the Cluster has accelerated as more ships have come to join us. We've also been able to speed up our construction timetable for new ships and the technology we've gained from researching the ruins has made things move even faster." she said. I looked over the sheets of plasti-paper, ignoring the Traveler text, which I had never learned to read, and instead focusing on the black and white images of the march of progress on New Grondia.

"Of course, these new…beings have slowed things a bit. We've devoted quite a few resources to come here and investigate." Larrin continued.

"Have you spoken with Elita about our little…incident?" I asked her, looking up from the stack of information.

"Yes. This…Shockwave, whoever, or whatever he is, could prove to be a significant problem if he turns out to be more than threats and promises. Of course, I have my doubts…" she started to say.

"I don't doubt him." I said. This earned me a concerned look from Larrin.

"I only got to hear him speak for two minutes or so, but…call it a gut feeling, but I get the sense that a new player is about to step out on the galactic stage…with big consequences for everyone." I said, staring firmly into her eyes. Larrin sighed.

"I know the feeling." she said. I recognized the look on her face. I had worn it myself in the recent past.

"They are something, aren't they?" I said. She blushed.

"I've seen a lot of strange things during my time as a Captain and even more since the resettlement started. I've even seen some of the stuff from the Grondian Colony Fleet Logs…but I never imagined such beings could exist…living machines." she said, obviously trying to restrain herself from gushing.

"Yeah, they're a bit more that even I expected." I answered grinning.

"We've had diplomats doing their best to get on good terms with them. They've been very cooperative, even the ones who are supposed to be 'bad guys'." Larrin said. There was a pause before I spoke, dragging us back on topic.

"Well, what's up with the Wraith?" I asked. Larrin's face darkened.

"We've managed to begin establishing a territory of our own. With your help and the new ships we've been building, we're starting to create a sphere of influence outside the Cluster. We've had success with hit and run attacks and we've destroyed more of their cloning facilities. In fact, we believe there's only about three of them left, but that's not the big news…" she said. She shoved more plasti-paper sheets down the table, which I had to catch with one hand. When she had finished, I took the first sheet off the top and raised the floppy sheet of plastic up to the light. Like all its counterparts, it was perfectly transparent, covered in Traveler language and dotted with small pictures of…well I had no idea what they were.

"We made a recent discovery that could be key to eliminating the Wraith. We've always known they can set up labs, but this is something else entirely." she said, giving me a shark's smile.

I pretended to examine the document briefly before putting it down.

"Okay, so what is it?" I asked.

"It's their support mechanism." she said, still grinning.

"What?" I said, trying to be as sarcastic as General O'Neill.

"You remember me telling you how the Wraith used cloning to increase their numbers in order to defeat the Ancients?" she said, rolling her eyes. I nodded slowly.

"Yeeessss…and?" I said, trying to make a gesture showing that I was getting tired of being expected to know what the hell she was talking about.

"Well, huge armies aren't much good if you can't carry them to where they're needed." she responded. I tried banging those words around in my head until something cracked open and the light of understanding shone through.

"It's a Wraith shipyard?" I said, stunned.

"More like a Wraith Ship-Farm. Their technology is organic. They grow their ships and other machines, which, while being a big strength, is also the source of their biggest weakness. We believe this is just one of several. They haven't been used in millennia, just like the cloning facilities, but now all of the Wraith are fighting over them. Without them, they can't replenish their space forces. And no one alliance of Hives has enough power to construct a new one. They're in limited supply ", Larrin explained, smiling maniacally. She handed me three more transparent sheets. Each one held more images. Now I could see what I had been missing. The images were of a barren, almost moon-like landscape, a landscape. In the various craters were curved and wavy shapes…familiar shapes. Hive Ships.

"According to our intelligence and some educated guesses, we think they built these things on planets that fall between the gaps of the Stargate Network, just like the cloning facilities. That way they have a perfect measure of defense should any people like, say, the Genii become a threat and decide to blow them up." They're inaccessible except by ship and they have formidable ground-to-space defenses." she continued, pointing out a number of other shapes surrounding the Hive Ships and other facilities. I poured over the images for a while in patient silence. This was big. In fact, this could be huge. I looked over at Larrin.

"As I've said, we've already destroyed several cloning facilities." she said.

"But they don't plan to use them in the near future anyway. Too many Wraith as it is…but THIS," I said tapping on the images, "You blow this up, and you put a SERIOUS dent in their support structure. No more shipyards, and every Dart lost is lost forever. You effectively take away their space-superiority advantage."

I grinned. This was enormous. This was quite possibly a turning point in the war that had gone on for far too long.

"You haven't told the Genii or the Hidden about this have you?" I asked, looking over more of the 'papers'.

"Only a few people in our highest circle know about this. I'm not even supposed to be telling you. The goal is that while we build our forces and establish a sphere of influence, we locate more of these farms, as many as possible. Then, once the time is right-", she said.

"You light 'em up all at once." I finished, Then in tried to use my one operative hand to stack the transparent sheets of plastic back into order…kept trying for ten seconds, then gave up in frustration.

"And you can't tell anyone because you can't risk another power striking before you've had the time to find as many of these places as possible. You want maximum effect, which requires patience, and you're afraid, and with good reason, that someone else won't have the patience you do." I continued.

"Exactly, plus, we take in more and more refugees every day. The more that come in, the more we build our own support system. We need unity and numbers to challenge the Wraith. You showed us that. You provided us with the tools, now it's up to us to make it happen." Larrin said.

It was at this point that Elizabeth, who had remained silent throughout the discussion, interrupted.

"Ford, Elita is trying to contact you. I told her you were awake and mobile again, and she says wants to see you in person."

"What for?" I asked. Internally, I had been an expecting a call from the Admiral the moment I had gotten up, since she seemed like the kind of person who would want to apologize for what had happened, even though it wasn't her fault. However, something in Elizabeth's voice piqued my interest.

"She says she wishes to speak to you about something they've recovered from the data banks of the ship. Apparently it's urgent." Elizabeth said. I sighed.

"Tell her I'll be out as soon as I can." I said before turning to face Larrin again.

"I get the feeling that there's another reason you're telling me about this…" I said suspiciously, "I know we're good friends, but this seems like something you would've kept close to the heart, even from me."

Larrin laced her fingers and aimed her gaze at mine.

"I need you to…ask your new friends a favor." she said hesitantly, "Since you seem to be on the best terms with their leaders." There was a pause as my brain, now fully cleared of the fogs of two weeks of sleep, jumped ahead of the conversation and provided a brief summary of what Larrin was about to ask.

"You want them to help in the fight." I said calmly. Larrin nodded.

"They've obviously had a great deal of experience when it comes to warfare. We could certainly use that to our advantage. ", she answered.

"And what if they say no?" I said, staring back at Larrin, "You've got to understand, they've been fighting for ten-thousand years, maybe more. They've traveled all over the universe looking for their Holy Grail, that Allspark thing. I don't imagine they'd want to engage in another war for the sake of people they've just met."

Larrin frowned.

"It's not like we were going to ask without offering something." she said, her tone one of affront.

"And what could you offer them that they might have any interest in?" I inquired.

"We have the Grondian ship logs."

That statement made me hesitate. The Grondian ship logs contained the incredibly detailed records of a journey over a thousand years and quite possibly millions of galaxies. If the Allspark was out there…it was entirely possible that the logs might contain some record of its location.

"That might be enough to get them interested, but I'm still not sure they'd go for it."

"All I'm asking is that you ask them for us. If nothing comes of it, then we'll let the matter drop."

I raised my eyebrows in doubt.

"What, just like that?" I asked suspiciously. Experience had taught me that when it came down to it, the Travelers could be as conniving as the Genii when it came to getting something they thought they needed.

"I talked with the Council about this before considering this. I've spent two weeks with these aliens, long enough to understand that this isn't their fight. They've got one of their own. The Council seems to understand that too. They said they wouldn't force the issue if you were rejected." she explained.

"I thought you didn't tell them that you were telling me about the shipyards?" I said.

"I just asked them if we could form a general military alliance. I didn't say anything about the shipyards."

I almost leaned on my burnt and battered arm, but hesitated and instead stroked my chin with my good hand. This incapacitation was going to take some getting used to. After a while, I looked at the plasti-papers, then at Larrin.

"I'll ask them about it." I finally said. Larrin smiled.

"Thank you." she said. I grunted.

"Don't thank me yet. " I grumbled, "We've still got a lot of ground to cover."