Chapter 6
The region known as Colorado, with its majestic mountains and forests, reminded the old man of his own home land of Hyrule (and, more recently, Ordon in particular) as he did a flyover of his target to get a better sense of the layout of the land. Cheyenne mountain and the old city of Colorado Springs had been a prime target of a thermonuclear attack during what T'Pol referred to as their third "world war" almost two hundred and fifty years ago. According to Link's sensors, the radiation he knew was the inevitable result of such an attack had all but vanished at this point, but because the area had been rendered uninhabitable for so long nothing remained of the old city or military structures, at least not on the surface that he could see. There was a more recent, more modern settlement some distance from the original site, but according to the gateship's instruments, the only thing which was down there at the target coordinates for a hundred mile radius was pristine forest and mountains.
The gateship's life signs detector indicated numerous people down in the forest, though not in any concentrated or organized fashion. There was nothing that would indicate a military installation, even under the surface. Link focused the sensors in on the coordinates T'Pol gave him. To the eastern side of the mountain he could see there was a small metal hatch of some kind lying near what might have been a service road at one time.
On a whim, he also did a search for a ring platform. He knew from his old friend's stories that Stargate Command had, at one time, used ring platforms regularly and had installed them on their own space faring battle cruisers. The gateship wasn't equipped with one, but it was worth the look to see if one had been installed on the surface. After a quick search though, he found nothing. Nope, if he was going to do this, it would have to be the hard way.
He found a clearing near the old access road, and piloted the gateship towards it, setting it down gently and quietly. "The truth is, I really don't need to risk going down there to wait for Daniel." He said to himself as he powered down the gateship, except for the cloak. "I should be close enough. I can just sit right here and wait for him."
His thoughts drifted back to what T'Pol had said to him when she left. Deep within himself, he knew she was right. The only reason he was here was because he didn't trust his mother or Hylia's for that matter, and the only reason why he didn't trust them now was because neither had talked to them for forty five years; not that he should have expected them to. "I shouldn't have expected them to talk to us. That would have been interfering in mortal affairs." He told himself. "And besides, the gods know I didn't really try and talk to them either." The more he thought about it, the more he realized what the truth was. "I'm scared." He finally admitted. "I'm scared of losing her. I've always been scared of losing her. I can't let her go." His eyes began to water at the thought.
It had been the abiding truth of his life for such a long time as he allowed his memories to drift back to that first time they had faced this. She looked then much as she does now, he thought. She had been lying in a bed, meditating and preparing for her moment of ascension. Hyrule had still been young to them then even though they had spent more than thirty years of their lives there.
His mother and hers had already passed into the other plane of existence some twenty years earlier, and now it was their turn to either make the transition or else end their existence forever. There had been tears in his eyes then too at the thought of being alone once she had gone.
Hylia had always been the more spiritual of the two of them. Being a security officer didn't usually afford many opportunities to meditate and contemplate your own existence. Deep within himself, he knew that he wouldn't be following her, and whether she ascended, or passed on, he would be saying good-bye.
He remembered when he finally saw her shining, shimmering form of pure energy rise from her clothing, shedding them along with the rest of her mortal life. She had met him in his mind as he watched her. "Don't grieve for me, Copulus. We will be reunited sooner than you think." She had said.
"I don't know if I'm ready for that yet, Hylia." He had told her. "I don't know if I ever will be."
"Have faith, my love." She told him gently, as he began to weep more freely. "Practice the meditations that I taught you. Let go of your burdens, and your attachments, and you will join me."
"I'm just a soldier, my love, not an ascetic or a scientist. My brain may be able to do it, but my soul... I don't know if I'm capable." He had told her.
"Have faith, Copulus." She told him again.
"Have faith." He repeated to himself as he found himself still sitting in the gateship's pilot seat. He could feel the wet tears that had fallen down his cheeks. "I was never very good at that, Hylia, and you knew it even then."
He remembered now. He hadn't been able to do it on his own, even as he did what she told him to do. He couldn't just let go on his own and it frustrated him until he lay on his own deathbed. That was when she came to him again and guided him the rest of the way. "You wouldn't let me go either, my love." He said out loud. "You helped me let go."
He checked the chronometer on his control panel. It had already been almost an hour since he had landed. He wondered how long he would have to sit and wait for his old friend. The truth was that it had been almost twenty four hours since he arrived in this world. If Daniel was going to make an appearance, he would have done so by now. As an ascended being, Link knew Daniel could travel at the speed of light even though he would need to use the stargate system or 'stow away' on a vessel with faster than light capabilities in order to move between the expansive distances of the galaxy. That should have been plenty fast enough to get here by now.
"Have faith." Link repeated. "Maybe it's time I followed your advice, Zelda." He took the linking book out of his coat pocket and opened it up to the back panel. The moving, rotating picture of the main hall of the Temple of Time whirled in front of him. He would be leaving the cloaked gateship where it was, and it would eventually run out of power and be exposed, but that was no concern of his. This people that now inhabited this world would be able to cope with it. It wouldn't destabilize it like it once might have.
He brought his hand up above the panel and began to lower it towards the book.
"Link!" Came the sound of a very familiar voice.
"Daniel?" Link responded, taking his hand away from the book and closing it. He looked around the inside of the gateship, but couldn't see anyone.
"Link, I know you're here outside of Cheyenne Mountain. I don't have a lot of time, so I need you to listen very carefully." Daniel's disembodied voice came again. "I'm sorry, I knew you were in our reality before and I know why, but I've only just been able to overcome this device enough to talk to you now."
"I'm listening, Daniel." Link responded, all of his attention given over.
"I'm trapped underground by a group of people called section thirty one. They have me imprisoned by some kind of device. I think it's some combination of an anti prior device and sangraal technology. I don't know, I've never encountered anything like it before. None of us have. I ventured down here to investigate and the next thing I know they've got me locked away in a box somewhere in the old S.G.C. I don't even know how long I've been here. I need you to get me out of here and destroy this device. I wouldn't ask this of you if I didn't need it, but I don't think they've got good plans for me. And if they've got one working device like this, I don't know if they've got good plans for the Others either. I know you specialize in this kind of impossible mission, and I don't have any other options."
Link put the book back in his coat pocket, got up and retrieved his energy pistol from its hiding place. "We don't leave our people behind, Daniel. Not now, not ever." He responded.
"Hurry." Daniel's voice said. And then he was silent.
Link wrapped the white weapons belt around his waist, sliding the pistol into the holster. He checked to make sure the personal shield was still where he had fixed it to his shirt. He then went to the rear of the gateship to check and see if there was still any cord or rappelling line in the storage. There was. He grabbed it and slipped it over his shoulder. There was also a survival knife in a sheath which he took and fixed to his belt, and a hand held lamp which was shoved into a pocket. He was really wishing now for his old pouches and kit that he would carry from one demon infested temple or dingy old building to another. But, he would make do. The ancient mirror shield he had wielded once upon a time had been useful against energy weapons though, he thought.
"Okay, let's do this one more time." He said to no one in particular, and opened the rear hatch to the gateship. "I'm coming, my friend. Just hang on for me."
Link emerged from the darkness of the ancient access shaft into another darkness. He pulled the hand lamp out of his pocket and strapped it to his wrist, flipping it on. It cast a long, bright beam piercing the darkness in front of him. The air was stale and dusty.
Most of the access shaft had still been intact. It was only the first fifty feet or so where the original ladder had been torn away. He had rappelled down until his booted feet found the remains of the rusted steel, and he was able to proceed down. He was thankful for it. His rope had just about reached its end.
The light was cast out into what looked like an ancient cement block tunnel or corridor reinforced with steel. It was filled with metal and stone debris littering the floor and sides. The walls of the corridor had different signs and symbols on them, none of which he could read, but which he assumed were a part of the original facility's workings. There was no sign of technology or human presence that would indicate anyone had been in this part of the facility for hundreds of years. How T'Pol had known of the shaft or this section he couldn't guess.
Link removed his pistol from his holster and kept it in his left hand, aiming the light with his right. His back was in pain and complaining from the climb down the shaft, but he ignored it. He didn't have the time to be an old man right now, he told himself. His friend needed him to be the hero he used to be, at least this one last time.
He threw the beam of the light around to try and get a better sense of where he was. To his right, the corridor continued further until it split off in new directions. The debris continued throughout the corridor. He cast the beam up to the ceiling. There were cracks that ran all through it, and it looked as though huge chunks had falled away, but he was reasonably certain that it had been done with its crumbling for a long time.
He wished Daniel had told him where in the facility he was, but the ascended being had ceased communicating with him. "It's not like its the first time I've gone in completely blind, now is it?" He said to himself. "No, it certainly isn't. It's the story of my life."
The debris crunched under his boots as he began to move forward. "So where are you, Daniel? Doesn't look like anyone's bothered with this level for a while. Maybe I'm still too far up." He said quietly to himself.
He went cautiously down the dark corridor, passing several open doors which led to different smaller rooms beyond, but no stairs or shafts that he could tell. All of the rooms still held equipment, books, furniture and so on as he briefly glanced in them with his light. It looked like the previous occupants had left in a hurry as he noticed drinking mugs and open books and notebooks left in various places on the dusty desks and shelves.
He wandered through the corridors on that level until he was certain he had walked the entire length of them and found nothing to indicate anyone had been there recently. He passed the closed door of what looked like an elevator shaft several times as he went around the corridors. As he came back to it again, he stood and studied it. "I don't know of anyone who would build an elevator into a building and wouldn't have a set of stairs to go with it as a back up." He reasoned. On the elevator were symbols which he recognized as some of Colonel Shepherd's people's numbers. "Nineteen." He made out. He wondered if that was the number of the level he was on. "Does that mean nineteen up, or nineteen down?"
He shone his light to the wall next to the elevator and saw a door which had been set in and away from the corridor so that he hadn't noticed it before. On it, there was a picture of what looked like a stick figure person walking down stairs. He tried the handle and found that it wouldn't turn. Link studied the door for a minute and found the hinges. He stepped back from the door and reset his pistol to a higher setting and fired it at the hinged, shearing them off with a bright blue beam of energy. The next to be cut was the door's lock. It fell away from the door frame with a metallic crash.
"Damn. I hope they're not on the next level down, or else I just told everyone I'm here." He said, cursing himself as he cautiously stepped into the stair well. He shone his light up and down the stairs. Higher up he could see the ceiling and side walls had collapsed in on the stairs, and they were twisted and impassible, but the metal stairs which led downward were still intact. He quietly and carefully proceeded downwards.
It was a long descent as he stopped at each level to listen and observe. He reasoned that only the levels which looked or sounded like they had any activity would be worth investigating. Those nearest to where he began were dark and silent, and he proceeded onwards. It was when he reached the door marked "twenty-six" that, when he switched off his lamp, he noticed the glow of corridor lighting coming from the cracks around the doorway.
Link silently reset his pistol to a heavy stun setting. He didn't want to kill anyone if he didn't have to, that wasn't why he was here, although he didn't want them getting up right away either. The corridor beyond was silent as he pressed his ear to the door. He willed his personal shield on, and turned the door handle to enter the lit corridor. Surprisingly, it turned without difficulty.
The door creaked open louder than he had hoped as he pulled slowly against it, but age and rust had conspired against him. The crack widened to the point where he had to allow his eyes to adjust to the bright light of the corridor beyond. There were still no sounds of movement as he waited for a few minutes for his old eyes to stop hurting. Once they did, he risked a quick peek out the crack.
The corridor beyond was much the same as the level he had emerged in, but in far better shape. It looked as though the damage from the war had never reached this far underground. Strips of lighting similar to what he had seen on the space station lined the floors and ceilings, and flat black computer monitor terminals lined the walls of the old cement and steel corridor which was otherwise empty.
He then risked opening the door further and slipping through it and into the lit corridor. The door remained open on its own, and he had to pull it shut behind him, carefully scanning the space around him as he did so.
"Okay, so where would they keep an ascended being locked up?" He asked himself silently. Just the thought that they could keep an ascended being captive in a place like this was disturbing and had profound implications. Ascension opened up the vast knowledge of the galaxy you were in to you, and gave you tremendous power, he knew from experience. Were they trying to harness that knowledge and power? That was a dangerous idea. "There is a reason we don't interfere with the mortal realms," he said to himself, and then he reminded himself of his own constant interference, "at least where just mortals are concerned. They really don't know what they're playing with."
Seeing that the way was clear, he needed more information. He went up to a black computer monitor and asked it quietly, "Computer?" The screen came on and displayed various piece of information, none of which he could make out. "Show me a map of this facility." He told it.
A floor plan of that level appeared on the screen, displaying also where he was in relation to it. "How many people are currently in this facility?" He asked it.
"Thirteen." Came a quiet female voice in response.
Twelve other people. That wasn't very many compared to the size of the facility. But, according to the floor plans and diagrams the computer displayed, there were only three levels of the original facility which were being occupied and used. "Show me their locations." He told it.
White dots appeared transposed over the floor plans. It appeared that there was no one on this level right at that moment. On the next level down however there was a group of three dots in a single room. The rest of them were on the lowest level, marked "twenty eight."
There was a set of words marking the room the three dots were in that he couldn't read. He knew it was a longshot, but he thought it shouldn't hurt to ask, "Computer, can you translate the text on the screen into Lantean... Uh, Ancient?" That was what John and his people had called Link's original people from Atlantis. Ancients. Much to Link's surprise, the text changed into something he hadn't seen for a long time, but could still understand very well. And he didn't like what he saw. It read, "Project Ascension."
"Computer, what is 'Project Ascension'?" He asked it.
"That information is restricted." Came the reply. Well, his luck with it was bound to run out sooner or later. Then he saw several of the white dots from the lowest level begin to move quickly through the floorplan to a room marked 'turbolift,' which he remembered from the station was like Atlantis' transporter lifts.
"Computer, clear monitor." He told it. The screen went black, and he moved quickly back to the stairwell door, and ducked back inside, closing the door. If they were coming up to meet him through a 'turbolift,' he would be going down by means of the stairs.
Chances are, he reasoned, they had some kind of a portable life signs detector with them, which meant he wouldn't actually be able to hide from them. The best he could do as he slipped down the metal stairs to the next landing below was to try and stay ahead of them. He had memorized where "Project Ascension's" location was relative to the stairs, and it was a good distance from the turbolift.
He turned the door handle, and it turned just as well as the other. He didn't wait for his eyes to adjust this time. He knew he didn't have the time, and there had only been three people on this level. None of them had been in the corridor. All he had to do was make it to the room and stun the 'white dots' before they had the chance to stun him. Then he would have to figure out what they were keeping Daniel in and how to free him.
He started into the corridor and ran down the hall towards the room in question. This level's corridors looked much like the level above it, retaining even the original steel doors to the rooms and chambers within. He reached the door of the room he had seen on the floorplan and reached out for the handle.
Then the world around him grew fuzzy and disorienting and his stomach became nauseous. "Oh damn." He swore, knowing what was happening around him. He mentally prepared himself to deal with what would be waiting for him when he rematerialized as the corridor dissolved into millions of disparate pieces only to be reassembled moments later into a completely different room, one in which he found himself looking at the business ends of what were obviously hand held energy weapons. Three large men in black variations of the Starfleet uniforms he had seen on the space station were standing behind the pistols.
"Lower your..." He heard them say before he fired his own at the three men standing in front of him. One of them managed to fire a bright red beam of energy at him, but his personal shield took the hit without transferring any of the energy to his own person. The men fell stunned where they stood, he then dashed to the side and fired at a fourth man who was standing behind some kind of control panel. He crumpled to the floor too. "Not my first outing, folks." He said, shaking his head. "Amateurs." He scoffed.
"Well, now I know where they were heading." He saw as it was the same number of men as dots on the computer screen. He took a minute to make sure the men weren't moving. They would be out for a couple of hours, he knew. Four down, eight to go, he mentally ticked off a count.
He took a look around the room. He was standing on some kind of platform that somewhat resembled the ring platforms his own, original people used to use. He remembered the General Hammond, Colonel Carter's battlecruiser hundreds of years before, had a similar teleportation technology that didn't require the rings to materialize or dematerialize the person or thing being teleported. "Stupid." He admonished himself. "I should have remembered they could do that, even back in John's time. No wonder they didn't worry about my poking around."
He went over and looked at the control panel for the teleportation pads. "Not going to be good if you guys call for reinforcements. Hope this slows you down a little." He said as he fired his weapon into the controls, sending sparks everywhere as circuits burned, melted, and fused together. Not satisfied with that, he also fired at the pads which he had just appeared on. Sparks and smoke exploded from them too.
Checking the men he had felled, he took one of their own energy weapons and shoved it into his pocket. "Hope this is set to stun for the sake of your friends." He told the unconscious man.
Now he had to figure out where in the facility he was again. He went to the metal door of the room and carefully opened it a crack, listening for the sounds of activity. There were none, as he opened it to find himself in one of the same corridors he had already been in. A number on the nearby wall read "twenty seven."
"I'm still on the right level. Now I need to find the 'Project Ascension' room again." He said to himself. He started through the corridor, but very near to the door he had just come out of he noticed a sliding door system similar to what he had seen on the station. It looked out of place in the less than modern walls of the corridors. The symbol for the turbolift which he had seen on the space station was emblazoned on it. As he approached it, the door slid open to reveal a small, empty circular room.
"Can't have that working right now either." He said, and he fired into what looked like key controls, trying to disable it. After several shots, the lights in the room went dark and the scent of burnt circuitry wafted out into the corridor. Satisfied that the turbolift was disabled, he moved on. Now the only way anyone could move through the facility was through the ancient stair well. He wondered if they would even remember it was there.
Plotting his route from the turbolift, and remembering where the room was in relation to it, he made his way back through the corridors to the door of the room he had been at. Pistol at the ready, he turned the door handle and threw the door open as hard as he could, taking the three men inside by surprise. He fired three times, and they went down before they had a chance to react. Five left to go, he thought.
He came into the room quickly and closed the door, fumbling with the ancient lock that somehow still worked to secure the door and keep the others in the underground bunker from using the same tactic he had just used. He figured he had all of a few minutes before they started pounding on the door, about fifteen seconds after that before they cut out the door handle with an energy pistol.
The men had been standing around a large black box which was sitting on some kind of a lab table. The box was smooth except for some blinking lights and several red crystals which seemed to be embedded in its corners. He recognized them as sangraal crystals.
"Okay Daniel, I'm here. I'm pretty sure you are too. How do I get this thing open without it hurting you?" He said out loud, but he only got silence as a response.
"Damn." He swore. "I don't have the time for this. Zelda might be able to figure this box out in a few minutes, but I sure can't."
He stood back from the box and pointed his pistol at it. "I sure hope this doesn't set off the red crystals on this thing, but it's all I've got." He set the beam to as high a power as he could and fired at the box, trying to cut it into pieces.
Deep gashes appeared, and several of the crystals popped and exploded as he bathed the thing back and forth with intense blue plasma. Finally after a few second of this, the box fell to pieces and a shimmering form of golden energy emerged from inside to hover over the table.
"Daniel?" Link asked.
The energy being coalesced into a recognizable face and human shape. "Yeah, Link. It's me."
"You good now? Can you handle these amateurs on your own?" Link asked.
"Yeah. I've got a pretty good idea of how to deal with them. You'll want to use your linking book before I do." Daniel responded. "Don't worry about leaving it here. I'll take care of it."
"What about Zelda?" Link finally asked. "You know she's the reason why I came here in the first place. We both need your help."
"I don't know what to tell you, Link. I know why you came looking for me, but I can only unblock your own mind. I can't do anything about Zelda's when she's in a completely different reality. I can follow you with the linking book after I'm done here with Section Thirty One's schemes, but your mothers may not let me interfere with her there." Daniel told him. "And I need to act soon to keep them from capturing me again, or any of the Others."
"What did they want with you?" Link asked.
"They're trying to figure out ascension. And they wanted to try and access the knowledge I possess as an ascended being. I can't let that happen. No mortal is capable of handling that responsibly." Daniel answered. "My friend, Zelda's got about three weeks. I can unblock your mind and make it possible for you to reach ascension again, but you've got to do the rest of it on your own. I can help you start the path, but I can't walk it for you. If you can reach ascension on your own, then you can help Zelda in the same way. That's the best I can do right now. If the Others don't prevent me, I'll try and make it into Hyrule to try and help you more."
"Yeah, I understand." Link said. "If that's the best you can do I'll take it."
Daniel reached out a glowing fingertip and touched Link's wrinkled forehead. "It's done." Daniel told him. "Now go!"
Link took the book out of his coat pocket, flipped it open to the back panel and set his hand to it. Within seconds he had dematerialized out of existence in that world, letting the book fall to the floor.
Daniel picked up the book and held it protectively, as he focused on the rest of what had been his home for so many years. But all good things must come to an end, and this place would have to as well. He searched out the old explosive charges which had been part of the original self destruct mechanism. They had all been disconnected as he had expected, but Starfleet's covert intelligence group had been sloppy. They had left them in place. "Link was right." Daniel smirked. "These guys are amateurs."
The region was hit by a massive earthquake which Federation scientists couldn't later explain. There had never been any fault lines running through the Cheyenne Mountain area. All they could say for certain was that the quake originated deep under the mountain and lasted for up to thirty seconds.