Jump Chain Gothic 4 - Atlantis - Part 4
Infirmary. Atlantis.
Well I'd made it to the City of the Ancients, and much sooner than I'd expected. There had even been a chance for me to get involved in one of their adventures. Granted there hadn't been much excitement for me, as I had the habit of dealing with dangerous situations as quickly and safely as possible.
The L class planet, which was home to a crashed Wraith ship and a lone survivor, had also been playing host to Major Shepard and a small team of science types. My ship had entered orbit in time to save one of the eggheads, who'd just been fed upon. He was currently in stasis, waiting for some sort of treatment. It might be years before someone came up with a treatment, but that was okay the science guy would be perfectly preserved in a stasis pod. Alas one of the smart people had been fed upon, and there was nothing I could do for him.
I'd also beamed up the Wraith who'd been stuck on that planet for the last ten thousand ro so years into my ship's brig. He was going to stay there until I decided what to do with him. To be extra safe I'd ordered to door to the brig to be welded shut, it was just safer to beam people in and out of the brig than risk a force field failing. That had happened more than once while on Voyager, and the results of the failure had never been pretty.
"This shouldn't take too long" Doctor Carson Beckett was currently telling me "I just need to take a few scans, and once I can give you a clean bill of health we'll see about getting you that meeting with Doctor Weir".
Given that I'd arrived in orbit of this world in an Ancient warship there was no doubt in my mind that Beckett was going to check my DNA for the ATA gene, and he would find it, and he would discovered that I was genetically engineered.
All this would prove was that I'd been telling the truth when I'd claimed to be an advanced human. Which I was when compared to the humans of this universe, not counting the Ancients.
Of course the only reason I'd consented to this was because it gave me, well actually it gave Cortana, the chance to hack into the medical files Beckett kept. Not only would I soon have medical information on everyone here on Atlantis, as well as data they'd gathered from autopsies on the Wraith, I would also have access to Beckett's gene therapy.
I didn't need it myself, and given Miranda's level of genetic engineering, it might be dangerous to alter her genes further, but Seven and Tali, while she was in her human form, might benefit from it. We'd have to wait and see.
"Take your time" I said to the medical person "I have plenty of it".
Ten years to be exact.
(Line Break)
Stargate Operations. Atlantis.
The scottish doctor entered Weir's office, and before the door closed behind him he heard her voice.
"Carson, what have you found about our... visitor?" she asked.
The doctor noticed that she seemed confused about this situation and he couldn't blame her. No one had been expecting an Ancient warship to suddenly turn up, and while the Captain of the vessel had plainly stated that he was no Ancient, that didn't really make him less of a mystery.
"Physically he is fine, I would say that better than fine" Carson asked "A little too healthy in fact, no genetic defects, no viruses that I can detect, and he's in great shape in terms of fitness. I plan to ask him to allow me to do some further tests, but what I can tell you is that he's been genetically engineered, and he has the Ancient gene. As far as I can tell it wasn't introduced via a retrovirus, he has it naturally. Although given the genetic engineering he's undergone I can't be totally certain of that, but I am certain that he is human, and from Earth".
Carson took a moment to gather his thoughts.
"I don't really have anything to compare him to, he could be an Ancient despite what he says, but he also could be a human that received some "alterations" to his body" the doctor said next.
Weir put her hands on the desk and intertwined them, she too needed a moment to collect her thoughts.
"What about the woman who teleported down with him?" Weir asked. "She seemed odd".
Carson understood why someone might think that way.
"That young lady is in a fact a robot of some kind" Beckett explained "Organic tissue on the outside, but under the surface she's a machine. Rodney told me that the technical term is cyborg. She seems to be a bodyguard of some sort, she kept very close eye on me while I examined our visitor".
It wasn't exactly standard practice to have all visitors to the city undergo and medical exam, in this case it had been wise as it had gotten them a lot of information.
"I will hold a meeting in an hour in the conference room with him, I want you there" Weir decided "If nothing else he's already met you".
Carson saw no problem with this.
"I understand, If you need me before then I'll be in the infirmary" he said.
With that Carson left the room, leaving a thinking Weir alone in her office.
(Line Break)
Stargate Operations. Atlantis
An hour after letting the chief medical officer poke and prod me I was walking through the corridors with Carson and two security guards towards the meeting room. The halls were empty, even the command center had only had a few people in it, yet it was day, the light streaming in through the windows was proof of that.
"Weird" I muttered.
Cameron also seemed bothered by something. The lack of people around was worrying, maybe they were being kept out of the way for some reason. I figured that it could be me that they were worried about.
"You'd think they'd be more welcoming given that you saved three of their people" she commented.
Well I knew that Rodney Mckay and John Shepard would have been okay as there been a Puddle Jumper nearby containing another team, but they hadn't known that.
The meeting room was the same as in the series, a semi circular table were Weir, Sheppard and Mckay were sitting, the last one had a notebook computer. Maybe he was taking notes or had some sort of scan going. No doubt he was interested in the armour I wore, and the gadgets I had on my person. I didn't have any weapons with me, I hadn't bothered to bring any since I knew that they would have been confiscated anyway. Not that I was in much danger, I had my kinetic barrier up, and Miranda was monitoring me, should I called for help she'd beam both me and Cameron back up to the ship.
I moved towards the center of the room with Carson at my side. Meanwhile the two guards stayed outside, as did Cameron for reasons of her own. Once the doors were closed Weir spoke
"Hello, my name is Elizabeth Weir, I'm the leader of the Atlantis expedition. To my right is John Sheppard, second in command and to my left is Rodney Mckay the Chief science officer, and you've already met Dr Carson our Chief medical officer" she said while Carson moved towards an empty chair "Now in your message you mentioned that you have information vital to the survival of this city".
Before coming down I'd finally decided to tell the people of Atlantis most of the truth. They weren't quite as advanced as Trek humans, who were used to dealing with higher powers messing about with people, but they did have some experience in that department.
"As I already told you Doctor Weir" I started by saying "I have access to information about the past, present and future. I've seen what could happen, and what has happened".
That was pretty vague, but I couldn't just come out and tell them that they were a TV show, at least not right away. For now my plan was to stick with me being an advanced human who'd been given access to an Ancient warship and a lot of technology by an ascended being.
Somewhere down the line the truth might come out, most likely when someone figured out that I possessed technology out of Star Trek, and if Voyager was a TV show in this universe one of the nerds here would recognise Seven of Nine, but that was a concern for later.
"Do you have a way to prove if what you saw is true?" asked Doctor Weir.
Indeed I did.
"I think so" I said to them after deciding to give them a bone "To start with there is some kind of abandoned mobile drilling platform somewhere on the ocean's floor. Once my science officer gets back I can give you the exact location of it".
This time It was Mckay who spoke
"What kind of platform?" he asked.
While I didn't remember what the platform did exactly, I did recall what happened in the show when it was found. A Wraith Queen would wake up, and nearly destroy Atlantis by having her crashed cruiser blow itself up, the cruiser was resting on an unstable part of the sea bed if I remembered correctly. Dealing with that should be simple since I had transporters. My people would just need to beam into the cruiser and prevent its reactor from overloading. Beaming in something like a load of nerve gas should kill the queen without causing the cruiser to explode.
"I think that It had something to do with energy generation" I replied.
That seemed to peak his interest, he looked as if he wanted to know everything right now, and I didn't doubt that he had a million questions, but Weir didn't let him ask.
"I know that there are at least two ships like mine out there, maybe three" I informed the room "Atlantis should have some kind of detector that will allow you to find them, but that might have to wait until you get a ZPM".
Since my space dock couldn't fit another Ancient warship within it I had no interest in going after them. Perhaps if I knew where there was a smaller Ancient vessel that I'd known about I would go after it, but that wasn't of much interest to me as I didn't have anyone else with the ATA gene.
Wraith ships also required a person to have special DNA in order to fly them, so they were also of little interest to me. It was unlikely that Teyla would aid me in that project given how closely she was allied with the Atlantis expedition.
"So you say that two more ships of Ancient design out there?" John Shepard asked.
I nodded.
"If you do find one floating in space on the long range scanners I don't mind ferrying some of your people so you can go check it out" I offered.
Weir spoke next.
"Well we can check that out later" she stated "For now I'd like to discuss what it is you want, and what you can offer us".
As expected this took some time. I had lots of things to offer, food, medical supplies, protection, and information. Of course before long matters turned to the fact that the Wraith were on their way. This city needed to be defended, and my lone ship wasn't going to be able to do that. They needed ZPMs and I wasn't going to give up the only one I had.
In return for my aid I wanted Seven to be able to study the Ancient tech here, and for these people to share information with me.
"We will need to discuss this before we decide what to do" Weir said, once I had made my offer "If you'll excuse us"
The doors opened once more, and a few moments later I was beaming back up to my ship.
(Line Break)
Stargate Operations. Atlantis
It took them almost two hours to discuss things, but in the end they decided to accept my offer, maybe because they were afraid of the Wraith more than me or maybe they truly thought that I was telling the truth, which I was in a sense.
Of course they couldn't afford not to accept my aid, but they didn't want to appear desperate either, hence why they'd made me wait for two hours.
"First things first" I said "I'll activate the pedestal"
"A pedestal?" someone asked.
A new voice appeared and when I turned I saw Radek I think his name was.
"We never encountered a pedestal".
Upon hearing that I headed down towards the gate.
"You don't have to believe me, just follow" I told them.
I was followed by the two security guards, not that they were needed, and they couldn't have stopped me anyway, their weapons wouldn't get past my defences, and Cameron wouldn't let them try.
"Hold on, it should be somewhere here" I said.
In the show the Ancient captain just stepped forward and the pedestal appeared so it simply should activate with a mental command. When it did everyone gathered around as I interfaced with the device.
It turned out to be device that allowed an Ancient to lock down a city-ship. Logically it should have required me to be some sort of military officer or civilian leader in order to have this authority, but the gene seemed to be enough. I could only assume that the city's computer systems were aware that the Ancients were gone. Or maybe the gene was enough, it wouldn't be surprising the Ancients had never been any good at securing their stuff.
As was part of its function, the machine instantly disconnected any foreign devices (such as non-Ancient computers and monitors) which were interfaced with the city, and reactivated many of the Ancient displays and control systems that until now had been offline. I could feel them coming online, much like how I could feel systems on my ship, only this was a bigger and even more complex scale.
Thankfully my head wasn't a standard human one, gene and body mods aside I possessed the Prothean cipher, and that species had made use of mental interfaces as well, like their beacons. As such I had some experience using technology this way.
The device also disabled system administration privileges used by city's present occupants and granted me command of the city. Most of the city's system, those that could function without a ZPM, were now under my command. If I'd wanted to I could have locked all the doors, shut down everything outside of the command centre, and then let Cameron deal with the guards while I beamed in some robots.
However as tempting as that was taking control of the city wasn't practical, and it would be foolish. I had a ship which was working and more importantly it was mobile, unlike Atlantis which was a sitting duck right now. Besides even if I did take the command centre, these folks had a habit of beating the odds, they'd find a way to retake control, and I would be worse off than before.
"I'm unlocking the system and returning control to you" I informed a worried looking Doctor Weir.
The lights went off and then on again, and before long someone reported that their computers were coming back on line. I waited for a little bit of time as Mckay checked things out, and he told Weir that systems he hadn't even known about were now running.
Once all that was done a very concern looking Weir made me realise that I should leave the city for a while. I'd overstayed my welcome.
(Line Break)
Aurora-class Battleship. Pegasus Galaxy.
"How's it going?" I asked Tali as I walked into the part of the ship she was using as her own workshop "Need any help?".
As part of our deal with Atlantis, which involved the sharing of information and resources in exchange for information about the Ancient tech being discovered in the city, my group had agreed to supply the people in the city with weapons to fight the Wraith.
P-90s were deadly weapons against humans, but it took a lot of bullets to kill a Wraith, and Weir's people had limited supplies of ammo. While I had replicated plenty of ammo for them, and already beamed it down, in the long I figured it was just better to give them more powerful guns.
However I didn't want to give them energy weapons, or Mass Effect guns, as those could overwhelm our kinetic barriers and our environmental shields, and I wasn't getting enough of this deal to make it worth the risk. So this was why Tali was building coilguns that were more powerful than P-90s without being a great risk to us.
A coilgun or Gauss rifle was a type of projectile accelerator consisting of one or more coils used as electromagnets in the configuration of a linear motor that accelerated a ferromagnetic or conducting projectile to high velocity. In almost all coilgun configurations, the coils and the gun barrel are arranged on a common axis.
Despite sometimes being called Gauss rifles, they weren't rifles at all as the barrel of the weapons are not rifled. As for the "Gauss" part that was in reference to a Carl Friedrich Gauss, who formulated mathematical descriptions of the magnetic effect used by magnetic accelerator cannons.
Most coilguns were rather harmless, much like a typical air gun and an order of magnitude less deadly than a firearm, but most coilguns were made at home, and with basic materials. Tali was using materials far in advance of those available to average people in the early part of the 21st century.
"Well I have a coilgun with hypersonic muzzle velocity" she reported "I'm just making some more improvements".
Hearing this didn't surprise me. Quarians, even when in human form, had great skill with technology, and Tali had access to the kind of tools most Quarians could only dream of owning. The downside to this was that she kept tinkering with machines trying to improve upon them when they already worked fine. Most likely this was because for most of her life she'd had to make do with what little she had, which had prevented her from exploring all the ideas she had for improvements to what she built.
"We need to keep the coilguns as simple as possible" I reminded the brilliant engineer "They'll need weapons they can repair and maintain without our help".
I was sure the people living in Atlantis didn't want to become dependant on us, and I didn't want them to become dependant on me as once the siege was over I intended to go back to exploring this galaxy.
That exploration should be far more fruitful in the future since we now star maps taken from Atlantis's databanks. Granted they were ten thousand years out of date, but for the most part things like stars and planets don't change much in just a hundred centuries.
"Well I could just replicate my prototype and then send some improved models later for use in the upcoming siege" Tali'Zorah decided.
I smiled.
"That's my girl" I praised.
She just smirked and went back to work.
(Line Break)
Stargate Operations. Atlantis.
Before the doors closed I saw some guards positioning themselves outside the meeting room.
"Huh, I never saw that in the series" I muttered to myself.
Mckay was the first to start talking, no surprises there.
"We have several Wraith ships incoming" he was saying "They will be here in two weeks".
I was sure that in the show it had taken the better part of a year for the Wraith to arrive at Atlantis because they hadn't been in any rush. Yet only a couple of months had passed since I'd nearly collapsed when the Wraith did awaken on mass. Since then they'd culled plenty of worlds, but it should have taken them longer to get here.
This was when I had the worrying notion that they were aware of my ship, if so, they might mistakenly believe that the Ancients were back. That explain why they were in such a rush to get here. This was bad as I'd expected to have a lot more time to prepare.
"So recommendations?" was Weir's question.
"Other than panic?" Beckett asked
"Other than panic, yes" Weir answered before turning to me "Do you know anything apart from the drones that could be used to defend the city?".
Indeed I did.
"Well, If the ZPM that the Brotherhood gave me is full, then it will give you enough power to raise the shield, you could withstand bombardment for days" I said.
The original Brotherhood was a group of fifteen monks whose sole occupation was to keep the Potentia safe, until the Ancients returned to reward them for safeguarding it. The group consisted of a master handler, five protectors and nine stone carriers.
The Quindosim's greatest fear had been that the entire brotherhood might one day be culled, which would result in the Potentia going missing, as only they knew its true location. Because of this The Brotherhood created nine stone markers which, when combined, would reveal the location of their treasure.
The original Brotherhood was in fact destroyed by a Wraith culling, but they'd survived long enough to hide the Potentia (the proper name for a ZPM). Their work was eventually continued by a woman called Allina, who the new master handler of the Potentia, when it was recovered.
Like in the show this new Brotherhood had taken the ZPM once it had been recovered, but in this timeline I'd be able to convince them that I was an Ancient. The Ancients, who were called the Ancestors by the people native to this galaxy, were only known in legend and those legends they had special powers. A quick demonstration of my biotic abilities had convinced them to had over the Ancient power source.
I had to reward the Brotherhood for their long service, but that turned out to be pretty easy as all they'd wanted, aside from protection from the Wraith, which I couldn't give, was aid for their people. Which thanks to my replicators I was easily able to supply.
"Then what?" Ford asked "The shield isn't going to last forever".
True, but there wasn't much I could do about that. ZPMs didn't exactly grow on trees, and I wasn't going to give up mine.
"My people have been able to restore the Ancient weapons platform" I informed the senior staff "They've installed a cloaking device and a shield. The plan is to keep the platform cloaked until the Hive Ships are in range, then it will drop the cloak, fire and raise a shield. Which should protect the weapon long enough for it to recharge. However I don't know how long the shield will last, and the weapon will be vulnerable when it fires".
Since Star Trek was a TV show in this universe I'd kept Seven of Nine out of sight, which she didn't mind as she wasn't a sociable person in any case. Besides there had been plenty to keep her busy. There was a lot of information for her to go over, and she had things to investigate, such as the crashed Wraith supply ship.
"There's something that I have been thinking about" Mckay was now saying "It's about sending a message to the SGC".
That got people's attention.
"You said that we couldn't use the Stargate" Doctor Weir stated.
"No, but we could use the gate to send a message and with the new ZPM, we could send someone, there would just be no way for them to get back" he said "and we'll need all the power we can get for the shield, meaning we wouldn't send too many people".
The meeting went on for a little longer, but there wasn't much to say so before long Weir dismissed everyone. I stood up and was ready to go, when Weir told me to stay, she didn't start talking until everyone was out and the doors were close once more. I had no idea what she wanted and I was interested in finding out.
(Line Break)
Aurora-class Battleship. Pegasus Galaxy.
"The meeting last longer than expected" Miranda commented as I beamed back onto the ship "What does Weir want now".
While our transporter was based on Starfleet technology, it had been made using Ancient tech and by a Quarian engineer, as such the transporter effect looked visually different than in the TV show. As such it should still be unknown to the people of Atlantis that we had Trek technology.
As for Weir, she was a very shrewd woman, so far she'd been able to ensure that her people got far more out of this alliance than mine did. It was a good thing for them that I was determined to keep Atlantis in one piece.
"She wanted to discuss the possibility of using this ship to evacuate everyone on Atlantis back to Earth" I told Miss Lawson "I explained that our hyperdrive couldn't make the journey, so she's handed over information on Atlantis's hyperdrive, which could make the journey, and she's offered help with upgrading the drive should her people end up on our ship. We could fit them all, the ship is designed to carry hundreds of people".
I was worried that they might try to take over the ship once they found out that my crew were pretty much just robots, and while Weir wouldn't do so cheerfully, I was sure she'd find some way to morally justify it to herself and her people.
Because of this I'd asked for time to think things through. Thankfully we still had a couple of weeks before the Wraith arrived.
"I'll need some time to think about" I said to Miranda "for now let's focus on the Hives heading this way".
Hopefully there was something we could do about them.
