Chapter 2

Rivendale, where dwells the house of Elrond is normally a quite and peaceful land, but today is unlike any other. Mere hours ago a deafening roar had filled the sky, awaking the slumbering city. From the heavens came a blazing ball of fire, reigning from the heavens accompanied but what could only be described as stars. The stars glowed brilliant white and blazed a path through the sullen forests, destroying trees and moving earth for the ball of fire the ensued. When all had become quite once again, a swath of destruction was left in its path. But what was assumed to be a ball of fire accompanied by dancing stars was in fact a vessel of sorts. Like the great sea vessels of old yet forged in metal of exotic origin. The sheer strength of the metal was unlike anything found in middle earth, stronger and lighter than mithril yet radiant and lustful like the similiarils of old.

Elrond now stood before a gaping crack in the haul of the vessel, peering inside he could see corridors that would be expected of the inside of a vessel. His party of seven Elfkin made their way into the corridor, their senses finely tuned for any sign of danger. The craft was amazing, he had never seen anything of similar construction. The walls were made of metal, less lustful than that of the haul yet clearly nothing produced by a people of middle earth.

'Could this be a craft of the Valor?' Glorfindel asked in a whisper. His eyes were gazing upon a section of wall that appeared to glow with its own radiance. Across its surface strange alien writing appeared to move as if by magic.

'In all my years, never have I heard of such a craft forged by any race in the long history of Arda' Elrond whispered back. He moved towards the wall with the strange writing and pressed his hand upon its cold surface.

'Lord that may be dangerous!' Glarindel gasped as he saw his master move towards the magical wall.

As if to prove him right a beam of light leapt from the wall and engulfed Elrond.

It lasted but a moment, yet in that moment the wall had scanned Elronds mind and decoded the elvin language. The light released Elrond who stumbled back only to be caught by Glorfindel and Glarindel.

'Are you okay?' Glorfindel asked with deep concern.

'I am fine' Elrond replied as he righted himself. Then he stood silent in shock staring at the wall he had touched.

Blazed across the surface in Elvin language were the words Emergency, core implosion in T minus seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds. Detonation yield of 23 megatons, recommend evacuation to a minimum of 2000 miles.

'Two thousand miles!' Glrofindel gasped. 'That would encompass all of middle earth!'

'We must do something!' Elrond yield. He reached back for the wall, unconcerned by the yells of the others.

The wall flashed at his touch this time it displayed what appeared to be a map of the vessel. From what Elrond could see the vessel was much larger than any sea craft. What appeared to be the control center of the ship lay a mere twenty meters down their current corridor, if there was any way of saving middle Earth the answer had to lie there.

The group made theie way down the corridor and stepped onto the bridge of the vessel. It was a large room filled with walls similar to that with the map. Furthermore there were what appeared to be humans lying unconscious.

'Humans?' Glarindel asked, he was clearly surprised that humans could have crafted a vessel of such exotic design.

'They may be of the Noldor! We knew they delved much into the craft of ship-wrought and metallurgy, but it is difficult to believe they could be responsible for a craft such as this!' Elrond stated.

'Either way we must wake one of them to aide us!'

'They are severely injured, waking them at this moment could be perilous!'

'It must be done!' Elrond ordered. Taking a vile that had been tucked into the folds of his armor he walked over to the closest human. In this case it was a female, who's features were much like that of the Rohirum yet her pale complexion gave the illusion of elvin blood.

Elrond uncorked the vile and waved it under the humans nose. She twitched softly for a moment, then her eyes flung open as she sat up.

'Who are you?' Sam asked, the strange being before her was clearly not human. The closest description she could come up with was an elf.

'I am Elrond of Rivendale, we need your help' Elrond explained.

It took a moment for Sam to register the words, at first it seemed that the creature spoke another language, but moments later the words that reached her were English. 'Thank god for the translators' she sighed.

'This, vessel of yours, it is about to destroy middle-earth!' Glrofindel raised his voice.

Sam shot the second Elf creature a quick glance, then realized she was surround by these alien creatures. That thought barely registered before she caught a glimps of the closest display screen and her eyes went wide.

'Oh my god, the core is going critical!' she yelled, bring herself to a standing position only to collapse back to the floor.

Elrond took the woman's hand and helped her to her feet the second time.

'We have to get to the engineering section!' she yelled.

'The map on the wall showed that area on the far side of the vessel, it will take many minutes for you to walk that distance in this state'

'You're going to have to carry me then!'

'Very well' Elrond picked up Sam and swiftly began running down the maze of corridors guided by the human woman.

It took barely three minutes for them to arrive at the engineering section. This area seemed to have taken the most damage, the haul casing had torn off and damaged cross beams had collapsed littering the floor with objects from the decks above. Sam guided the Elf towards the core at the center of the room. A field of blue energy blazed around the core, protecting it, however fluctuations in the field integrity were already showing.

'I have to shut down the core!'

'What can I do to help?'

'The connection to the main computer must be offline, that's why it hasn't shut down the core remotely. I'm going to have to write a shutdown subroutine into the cores secondary systems but honestly I've got about as much experience with ancient algorithms as Teal'c has with humor'

'So is there anything I can do?'

'Um actually yeah, there appears to a secondary power shunt on the far side of the core, if you could find a power source you could buy us a little more time!'

'Power source?'

'Ah, yes, okay it's a box about yey big' she explained using gestures 'You plug one end into a device and it provides emergency energy. There should be a couple in the storage room over there'

With that Elrond left the human and made his way to the storage room she had pointed out. This door was closed, and possessed no handles of any kind. He began pounding on the door hoping it would give way, but the metal was tougher than anything he could have imagined. He returned to the woman whom he found sitting before the core and a small panel that lit up much like the wall. Her fingers were dancing across its polished surface as if independent of the rest of her body, while her eyes were transfixed on the panel.

'The door is closed and I can not find a way in'

'These schematics say power is still flowing to that door, did you try pressing the button?'

'Button?'

'Yes the door has a little blue crystal on the frame, you simply pass your hand over it and it should open for you?'

'With magic?'

'I guess you could call it that, but you have to hurry, the core containment field is failing we need those generators!'

Elrond ran back to the door and waved his hand close over the blue crystal. Immediately the door parted permitting him entry. Inside he could see contraptions of indescribable use and origin scattered around the room. He quickly found two of the devices the human had described and dragged them back to the main room.

'Great, now if you remove that panel you should find some cords. Pull the cords out and attach them to the generators' Carter explained without taking her eyes off the panel before her. She was making progress on the shutdown routine, but it was tedious work. The ancients were stifflers about redundant systems and whenever she felt she had the algorithm sorted out she would find a new redundant algorithm that would keep the core active.

Elrond had attached the cords with great success and with an explanation from the human woman he had activated the devices. They both began to glow with brilliant energy and he could feel the power move through the cords and into the core. He made a mental note to ask the woman how such power could be stored within such small a space.

'Great Elrond, the generators are compensating for 50 of the containment field, taking stress of the cores energy reserves. You've bought us an extra twenty minutes or so'

Elrond could do little but stand and watch, he had already given orders for the others to return with aide for the other humans who still remained unconscious. They would return soon, and hopefully it would not be in vain.

'Are you okay?' Elornd asked, watching Sam begin to falter.

'Im okay, just getting a little light headed' She replied, not willing to give in to what she already knew was internal bleeding. If she stopped the core from destroying everything, she was pretty sure she would not live through the night.

'I've got it!' Sam shouted, using the last of her energy to activate the algorithm. The core began to dim in intensity then vanish completely. The containment field disappeared shortly after.

'You have saved us all, Middle-Earth is forever in your debt'

'You're welcome' Sam managed to gasp before falling unconscious.

Elrond caught Sam before she slipped off her stool and carried her out through the corridor to a makeshift infirmary the others had managed to set up. He placed her on a bed and watched over her as several Elvin healers began to asses her.

'She is dieing' Narthul finally stated after many hours of tending to Sam. 'Her wounds are too great for our powers'

'What of Galandriel?'

'The healing powers of Lothlorien maybe the only means of saving her'

'Then we must send her there'

'Very well'

'What of the others?'

'One is lost beyond all skills of healing, two will take many days to recover, and the last shall fall without the healing powers of Galandirel'

'Then we shall send the two to Lothlorien, prepare an escort and send word to Galandriel'

'As you wish my lord'

The Elvin nurse left Elrond's side, leaving him to stare intently upon the face of the woman who had just saved all of middle earth.