Author's Note:
I have not abandoned this story; life is interfering with my abilities to write. The next chapter after this one just does not want to be written.
Every time I start it comes out horribly. I will continue soon.
Please leave a review in the box provided at the end of every chapter, I need input and suggestions' to improve this story. It does not matter what it is good, bad or indifferent thank you.
Chapter 38
A Psychopathic Ship in Pegasus
Sam and John Shepherd are getting knocked around on Brugon; its inertial dampeners are straining to keep up with the shooting from every Wraith vessel they are currently battling. Streams of golden colored lights are constantly leaving the six drone ports located on its piers.
The Asgard Plasma beams and Grodin's are heating up almost to the point of overload; if this fight does not end soon the city would be forced to shut them down before they melt. All of a sudden fifty Twee's and Scutin class warships burst onto the fight; it looked like they had successfully adapted McKay's WHD invention into these ships.
"General Brewster to Governor O'Neill seems to me you could use some help. I brought along a few friends we will help you get rid of this mess."
"Thank you Beth, we are glad to see you. Do not destroy the darts! They may contain humans in their storage devices, we are in the process of beaming them into our Asgard and Ancient crystals I want you to do the same. Devote two ships to removing any human life signs from any of the Wraith hive and supports ships.
Place them in stasis until we can determine if they are Wraithworshipers or not. We are in the process of looking for any life signs on the wreckage. If they are Wraith beam them into a low orbit it will burn them up, Shepherd once told me reentry is a bitch. One more thing if you find any humans remember, use extreme caution once all stasis chambers are full start filling up the brig on your ships."
By the time the entire enemy fleet is destroyed twelve hours have gone by. Even Sam had taken a turn in Brugon's interface chair, fifteen people had sat in it some were violently thrown causing bodily injuries. The brutal nature of his matrix personality will not allow any human currently aboard to bond with it, so far the only pilot it would currently allow is Shepherd. Sam is worried something is wrong with him, a total reprogramming is not what she needs to do now and only her hands can pull any personality matrix crystals.
Anyone else who has tried on the other city-ships received a nasty second degree burn; every vessel will only allow Sam to get close to their sensitive areas. One human is thrown back ten feet against a wall from traps set to prevent access to this vital area, that poor technician had third degree burns and a two broken bones in his arms he would be a long time recovering from this.
No city would allow the Asurans near those systems to help with the replacements. Carter had to do it herself after every city is rebuilt. It meant spending almost one week crawling thru the bowels of fifteen cities with a heavy toolkit and replacement parts, the designers of the cities had purposely placed them where an invader would not get to the crystals without getting caught and killed. There are even traps for any unauthorized beings; a robotic maintenance worker would be melted down to scrap for being in this shaft. It meant she had to disarm them as well or risk getting killed herself.
"Brugon, I want you to locate a body of water on the planet below big and deep enough for you to land, it must be close to the continent Borealis is on. I will be beaming over General Brewster's ship now.
Attention all crew prepare for a landing in one hour, Carson if you need more time tell it to this ship's VI. O'Neill to Brewster beam John Shepherd and I to your ship."
Both leaders are encompassed by a bright white light transporting them to Gen. Brewster's ship
Beth, please take us to hyperspace now. I would like you to set a course to the old Asuran homeworld we need to pick up ore for the repair of Borealis. We need to talk in your office."
"Sam, what is wrong? I have not worked for you long; even I can see there is a troubled look on your face."
"Beth, there is something terrible wrong with that city's personality fifteen people have sat in its chair, seven were violently thrown from it. One ended up in the corridor with the doors slamming shut behind her and I mean me. John did Rodney find anything in the records?"
"Sam, he managed to reset its Stargate to the local star system and called Atlantis speaking to her VI about Brugon, I do not know what went on between them but after she was done he allowed us to copy all of the data to our ship the Weir. She must have read him the riot act!
Rodney went thru it and found a very disturbing tale. It seems its first pilot was named Brelmic and he was a well know killer ten thousand years ago. You would call him a psychopath now; there was a trial for crimes so hideous they would not list them. Apparently Brelmic tried to steal Brugon when it was still in the shipyard.
The poor bastard of a baby VI had just been installed. It was corrupted by this psychopath. They convicted Brelmic and sentenced him to a planet one hundred days walk from the Stargate. No food, water or fire: it was a desolate world and from what information we could find it still is. The Ancient's used it for the worst of their criminals.
When he was exiled there was no gate on the ground for him to get to. They had moved it into space.
Then Brogan went mad, No one could get near his Matrix crystal to pull them for a reprogramming. The Lantean technician that tried was killed by a nasty electrical shock from one of the traps.
The Lantean Council finally found someone it could get along with, that person had to be kept locked up when not flying the ship and that one was a sociopath by today's standards, finally the city just disappeared never to be seen again till now.
Do not trust it Governor! Atlantis managed to talk it down this time who knows what will happen next time."
"General Brewster, once we extract the ore set a course for Praesidos he will be able to tell us more. I guess it will be a matter of having several of the sentient VI's flooding the city's systems with their own quantum signatures to allow us access to Brugon's matrix crystal. Once they are retrieved, a complete wipe job will be done on them and they will have to be destroyed, if we do not wipe them it could transfer itself elsewhere. It saddens me to be forced to do this, but if it's insane we will need to protect ourselves that is one reason I asked you to beam us over Beth so he would not be able to hear us talk."
It is a day later and Sam is locked in a room with the VI's trying to figure out how to safely extract Brugon's crystals.
"I have thought about beaming them out. There is no way to know if it will work he could transfer to another set of crystals and then kill the baby VI we try to replace him with. We should have all of the VI's attack his systems over your hidden quantum network.
Yep I found that out, you did think it would be possible to keep it away from me? One day while tinkering with a wave form discriminator an unknown pattern showed up, finding out exactly what it meant took me months. This led me to your supposedly super secret way of communicating."
Praesidos hologram appeared next to Carter looking very surprised; no one was supposed to be able to find that signal.
Atlantis asked her thru the Stargate connection.
"Governor why am I not surprised you found it?"
"After your talk with Brugon, Atlantis he let McKay copy all of his files to the Weir, Praesidos I want you to go thru them and make sure we do not have a stowaway in them. Take every precaution if his VI is hiding in them it could try to kill you. Have all of the VI's sentient or not, flood that ship's crystal quantum signals! That is an order!"
Sam is right to have them do this that psychopath is hiding in the Weir's storage matrix; this made it necessary to destroy or remove any connected systems crystals. Brugon kept trying to escape; it is a good thing all interconnectivity with the base had been severed due to battle damage. It is now time to do the same on the city sitting on the ocean of Eldred's planet.
"Carter to Brewster: have your ships systems tested by the combined power of our VI's there could be a stowaway in them and then beam me back over."
One day later Sam pulled the ZPM's and Arcturus power from Brugon while the combined might of over sixty thousand VI minds flooded his matrix. This precaution would save her life when going after the crystals. She then waited two weeks allowing all power to drain.
"Sam, I am not reading anything from this city now no energy is currently flowing thru its circuits. Still be careful if this thing is as nuts as the first one who sat in its chair…"
"Don't worry Rodney; I am wearing that special suit we made. Dying would leave my kids and husband without me that is something I do not plan to do. Is the connection open to Atlantis?"
"It is, a Naqahdah generator and the gate have been isolated from all systems of this city. I rigged a separate circuit for both of them we don't need that personality escaping from this ship. All the VI's currently in our Milky Way galaxy are now online thru the Atlantis stargate."
Four hours later Carter is still crawling thru the tunnels towards the access hatch for this city's crystal trays. It is a good thing that suit is well grounded; several times a gigawatt's worth of power from several traps attacked her, the amperage would have killed Sam instantly. This is a very tiring job the city had setup a jamming signal that would not allow her to beam anywhere near its vital systems. Many times over the journey she wished to be able to remove the hot suit until the next power spike tried to kill her. Six hours later exhausted Sam finally made it to the core.
"Carter to McKay, I made it here the damn doors sealed now what do I do? We did not think any explosives' would be needed."
"Zelenka here Sam, Rodney is not here. Jennifer needed him to help with Junior, it is my shift now. I would suggest using the cutting torch this will allow you to create an opening just large enough for you to crawl thru; there is no emergency hatch that would close on you behind that access panel. There should have just enough gas in its tanks for this to work. Hurry! Something is in the tunnel a half mile behind you."
Carter manages to cut a hole just in time and crawl thru it. A hidden maintenance robot leftover from the city's construction that had been stolen by Brugon to prevent exactly what Sam is trying to do to his systems is trying to kill her. Carter re-welds the cut section back into place preventing the robot from getting to her temporally.
Running to the main access panel and kicking it out of the way in order to quickly remove what she came here for. Meanwhile power is jumping and flowing thru the floor as a last gasp effort to kill her.
Exhausted and successful a call goes out to her friend in the control room.
"This is Sam; beam me the hell out of here the jamming fields should be down. Zelenka, there is a robot down here you might want to see; I think it is a left over from Ten thousand years ago."
A bright white light surrounds Sam; collecting her from the ordeal she just went thru. Once back in the control room she collapsed from exhaustion.
"Medical teams to the control room Carson get up here!"
"Beckett here what's the big emergency?"
"Radek here Carson Colonel Carter has just collapsed!"
"I am on my way Radek be there in a jiffy."
It is a good thing he called a med team Sam had not fully recovered for having the triplets. This made the VI's even more determined to get her out of that defective clone body. It has been less than a month from giving birth and she is crawling around in a homicidal city!
"OH, I feel sick."
"Easy now lass, you're a wee bit tuckered out from that stupid stunt ya pulled. What where ya thinkin' not even a month after havin' a passel of wee babies! If I knew that you were going to do this…"
"Carson? Where am I?"
"Samantha you're in the infirmary. Now that the jamming field is down Rodney and Radek are able to get into the special area of this city.
If you ever pull a stunt like that again I will order you to the beach bungalow for six months with nothing to do but watch the tides go in and out! It has been a week since you passed out in the control room; your husband has been in here making a royal pain in my arse out of himself.
I finally had to threaten a security detail would tie his stubborn arse to a bed if he did na get some rest. Your wee babies are fine; Olivia and Jonathan say hi they cannot wait for their mother to get home.
It was two months later before Sam was even allowed to do anything beside sit behind a desk and use her brain. Rodney was able to place a new personality into the former city-ship called Brugon he was no more, a new name is given to this city it is now called Eava. There would be no one sitting in its interface chair anytime soon the room is sealed and a team of four marines is stationed in front of both doors permanently until a very special kind of psychic evaluation is done on any candidate for the job of pilot.