9 – Inside the Ori Warship

(Ori Warship – Cargo Bay – 12.02.2022, 1401)

Laura Cadman stepped into the cargo bay. Alec Colson, Ginn, Daniel Jackson, Nicholas Rush and Adam Volker were waiting for her. During her time on Spera, she had read up on the Ori. Still seeing a ship like this firsthand was impressive. She joined the others and gave Rush a nod. The Scottish scientist approached the bulkhead with the only door out of the room. He worked the controls next to the door and the door slid open. ~Where's the power coming from ?~ They made their way into the corridor beyond.

=/\=Whoa,=/\= Volker began. =/\=Looks like Atlantis got some good punches in.=/\=

The corridor was badly damaged. Pieces of bulkhead were missing, lights were broken and circuits were exposed. The gravity was also off-line, so pieces of metal were floating all over the place. They began making their way down the corridor slowly. Eventually, they reached a section that was blocked by debris. Fortunately, there was a door nearby. Rush opened the door to reveal a set of quarters. The room was in bad shape, with two dead Humans and a dead Vanir on the floor. Looking up, Cadman realized that the ceiling had been blasted away. Above the quarters was what was left of an auxiliary control room.

=/\=We need to get up there,=/\= Jackson said. =/\=If there is any data left the computers, that's where we can find it.=/\=

Pushing off from the floor as best as the spacesuit allowed, Cadman discovered that the local gravity was much lower than Earth sea level. She landed next to a badly damaged control console. There was two doors out of the room. One was clearly placed to lead to the corridor, the other led to a room next to control room. Following Cadman's example, the others made their way to the control room as well.

As they did that, Cadman opened the door to corridor. But there was no corridor. The whole section was missing. So she moved to the other door. It opened to reveal another cargo bay. There was another door across from the one she had used to enter. While she had been exploring, Colson and Volker had set about hooking up their laptops to the control consoles. Besides the damaged console, there were two functional ones. Jackson and Volker were at one console, while Rush and Colson were at the other. Ginn followed Cadman into the cargo bay.

=/\=Looks like there was nothing in here,=/\= She said as reached Cadman. =/\=The cargo bay we arrived in appeared to have been full of supplies before the hull was breached.=/\=

=/\=Good point,=/\= Cadman reached the door and tried to open it. But nothing happened. =/\=The door is locked.=/\= She turned to face Ginn. =/\=Do you have a scanner ?=/\=

=/\=Yes,=/\= Ginn said as she detached a scanner from her left leg. =/\=Let's see what we can see.=/\=

Ginn set to scanning. As she was doing that, the translation program on Colson's laptop was doing its job. Because of the spacesuits, it had not been easy to connect the laptop. And even with the laptop connected, there was only so much he could do. There were several security lockouts keeping them from operating the main systems.

=/\=I've found where the power is coming from.=/\= Volker said. =/\=It looks like there are several emergency power cells keeping the systems going.=/\=

=/\=Looks like there is a small pocket of atmosphere and gravity nearby.=/\= Jackson said.

=/\=That explains the lockouts,=/\= Rush began. =/\=It's so that nobody can route the power away from that area.=/\=

=/\=I hate to interrupt,=/\= Ginn said from the cargo bay. =/\=But Colonel Cadman and I have already found your pocket.=/\=

Ginn's scan had revealed that the room beyond the cargo bay had Earth sea level gravity. It also had atmosphere and seven life-forms inside. There was also a dampening field that blocked scanners. The only reason Ginn had been able to detect them, was because she was standing right next to the room. After her scan, she had moved to the other side of the cargo bay. The lifesigns had vanished when she had been halfway. Jackson and Colson joined Ginn and Cadman, while Volker and Rush continued work on the consoles.

=/\=So, now what ?=/\= Ginn asked.

=/\=Something tells me this is not going to be easy.=/\= Cadman began. =/\=Whoever is in there, they are probably not going to be the friendly sort.=/\=

Jackson nodded. He had a feeling that Cadman's assessment was spot-on.

(Ori Warship – Section 17 - 12.02.2022, 1435)

Tomin held his weapon at the ready. He was waiting for the Terrans to breach their little bubble and kill them all. ~After all these years, it's about to end here.~ His people's fight had begun when the Terrans had launched an invasion of the Ori Galaxy. That had been in the Terran Year 1997. For twenty-five years, Ori had fought for every inch of their home. But eventually, the Terrans had found the last resistance hold-out and bombarded it out of existence. This ship, the Liberty, had barely escaped that attack. It had launched a last – desperate attack – on Atlantis. They had destroyed the city, but the Liberty had taken major damage.

Tomin was one of only seven people to survive the attack. And the only one with a weapon. ~Talk about irony.~ During his childhood, there had been an accident that had left him sterile and lame. This had made his unsuited for military service. But as the war continued, the Ori had needed more soldiers. So they had begun something called the Phoenix Program. The Phoenix had been a warship that had been converted into a giant flying hospital. She had travelled from planet to planet, finding people who – with the Ori's advanced medical technology – could be cured of the issues that made them unsuitable for service. The regulars troops had looked down on these "Phoenix soldiers", but now one of them – Tomin, who had been cured in 2005 – was the last one left.

"How much longer ?" One of Tomin's companions asked.

"Not much longer, Daniel," Tomin said. "They're working on getting the door open."

Doctor Daniel Jackson had been a Terran Medical Doctor. He was also been amongst the founders of a group called Colonials. The Colonials were a group of Terrans who thought the Empire and its methods were wrong. So they had begun to bend the rules as much as they could, essentially becoming a resistance movement inside the Empire. Recently, however, the Empire had no longer needed to divide its attention between the Colonials and the Ori. This had forced several Colonials – including Jackson – to flee to the Ori hold-out of New Carthage Prime. This was planet was that had been bombarded in the last Terran attack.

"I can't believe it's going to end like this," Jackson said.

Tomin nodded. The room they were had been built as a fighter bay. But after the attack on New Carthage Prime, it had been converted into a place to house refugees. There had not been any fighters to launch from the bay anyway. They had all been lost in prior battles. The area around the bay had been badly damaged. So once the Terrans opened the door, there would be nowhere to run. He had barely completed the thought when the door opened.

Tomin opened fire with his weapon. It was a Terran energy weapon called a Intar. The Intar was practice weapon that only stunned. But he did not complain. Once the Terrans were stunned, they would be able to throw them out the airlock. Which would be the end of them. These weapons could take any shape the Terrans wanted. In this case, it appeared like a Terran MP-5.

"Die, Terran scum !" Tomin yelled.

=/\=We're not Terrans !=/\= A male voice said.

"Yeah, right !" Tomin began. "And I'm the Emperor of Oz !"

=/\=The Great and Powerful Oz ?=/\=

The reply made Tomin pause, which was a mistake. He didn't see the weapon that hit him. Just an electrical flash – which hit him in the chest – before his knees buckled and the world faded to black.

(Liberty – Fighter Bay - 12.02.2022, 1518)

Tomin woke with a headache the size of the Liberty. He opened his eyes to see two Daniel Jacksons. One was wearing a doctor's coat and blue scrubs, the other was wearing some kind of military uniform. But not a Terran uniform. At the sight of two Daniel Jacksons, there was only one thing for him to say.

"Oh no, they send me downstairs."

"Very funny, Tomin," The medical doctor Jackson said. "But you are still in the land of the living."

He slowly sat up and looked around. There were two Puddle Jumpers parked in the bay. And there were now plenty of people in the room. Besides the seven survivors, there were no less then sixteen of these newcomers. He was about to ask who these people were, when he saw something that took his breath away. One of the newcomers was Vala. ~That's impossible.~ Vala, his beloved Vala, had died in his arms three years ago. She had been killed by General O'Neill, whom Tomin had executed. He got up from the bunk he had been on and approached her.

"Vala ?"

"Hello, Tomin," She said with a smile.

"How is this possible ? You died, three years ago."

"It's a long story," Vala took his hand and led him to the bunk. "But I'll explain everything."

They sat down and Vala began explaining about how she was from an alternate universe. The two Jacksons had been comparing notes while Tomin had been passed out. Liberty's Jackson had given Volker and Colson an override code that allowed them to access the logs so that they could figure out what had happened to throw bring them to this universe. At the same time, he had also told them about their home universe and its history. The local Jackson had then told him about the history of the Tau'ri universe. The knowledge that they had destroyed the wrong Atlantis, had shocked the Liberty survivors. As Vala explained about the trap the Terrans had set for the Wraith, the Tau'ri and their allies and the resistance, it clicked in his head.

"They wanted collect food and to take us out of the picture in one swoop," Tomin said.

"Yes," Vala began. "While taking out any competition at the same time."

"So, what do we do now ?" Tomin asked.

"We're working on finding out how exactly you ended up here," The local Jackson said. "Once we know that, we can come up with a plan to sabotage their sabotage of the Liberty."

"What are you talking about ? The sabotage and the attack on Atlantis have already happened," Tomin said as he turned to Jackson. "Unless you have a time machine, there is nothing we can do."

"Actually," A male voice said. "That might not be so far-fetched."

Tomin turned to see Cameron Mitchell, which made him frown. Mitchell had been the Commander of the Phoenix and had been killed when the hospital ship had been destroyed during the attack on New Carthage Prime. This whole alternate universe thing was going to take some getting used to.

(Stargate Command – General's Office - 13.02.2022, 0800)

Dennis Kersey sat in his office. He had eaten breakfast in the Mess Hall, before heading to his office. This were rather quiet at Stargate Command. With SG-1 away to Pegasus, SG-2 was now the flagship team. They were also the only team currently off-world. So Kersey was free to read the latest reports. SG-1 and it's Expedition Team had found a small group of survivors aboard the Ori Warship. And between the survivors and the ship's computer, they had found Stargate Command the answers they had been looking for.

It turned out that a Terran spy had attached a device to the hyperdrive that had turned the engine into a dimension drive. The good news was that they knew where the device was now. The bad news was that the device was fused with the hyperdrive, which meant that removing it for study was not an option. They had also found a beacon, which was how the Terrans had been able to track the Liberty during its trip. But more important had been discovering the identity of the Terran spy. They had discovered that it was an Engineer called Tyler McNamara. That done, the team and the survivors had then returned to the Spera.

As for the time travel plan, it made Kersey's head spin. If the succeeded in preventing the destruction of Atlantis, wouldn't they end up deleting the currently timeline and thus themselves ? Which would then keep them from preventing the destruction of Atlantis, thus putting the timeline back to its original form. ~Thus keeping the timeline in a constant state of flux.~ He leaned back and sighing, trying not think about it too hard.

"Time travel is always complicated, sir," A female voice said.

He looked up to see Doctor Carolyn Lam standing in the doorway. Despite the retirement of her father – General Hank Landry – Doctor Lam was still the Chief Medical Officer of Stargate Command. Before Kersey had become the base CO, he had only met the doctor twice. Since then, they had talked several times. But the General was still not that familiar with the Doctor.

"Doctor Lam, what brings you to my corner of the mountain ?"

"Paperwork, sir," He offered him a folder, which Kersey took. "Doctor Beckett send through his report on the Ori rebels, sir. Basically, they are ordinary humans like you and me, sir."

"Thank you, doctor."

Lam nodded and left Kersey to keep reading reports. He had a feeling that – if this time travel plan succeeded or not – that the worriless days that begun in 2017 were about to end. After the end of the war between the Lucian Alliance and the New Asurans, the Tau'ri and their allies had lacked any major enemies. But now the Terrans were about to change all that. ~If we save Atlantis or not.~ It was something that he would to discuss with the President and IOA. But that was a tomorrow problem. Today, he had to worry about yesterday.