I hope you like thie Chapter, I like the part with Daniel fumbling though the tunnels, it was kind oflike me, blindly writing anyting that looked good.
If I owned SGA I would have this made into a movie.
By the way, keep your eyes peeled for a Sea Quest DSV refence, I actually thought it was mildly amusing. But you may think otherwise.
Any way, read, review, worship if yo so desire.
Stargate Atlantis: Ark of the Apocalypse
CH 6 - A needle in a haystack
Atlantis - Conference room.
"I wouldn't even begin to know where to start looking." Carter confessed.
"What did you learn from the Holo-room?" Woolsey asked.
"Not much, the only Intel we do have came from an ascended being that broke a lot of rules." Carter explained.
"And all he told you meant nothing." Sheppard clarified.
"From what Daniel said 'the Leviathan was a mythical sea monster that guarded Atlantis.' But that doesn't tell us much." Carter explained.
Sheppard was still griping about the Intel from the ascended being.
"'You have to go back to where you began?' Sounds like he's not being helpful, but he wants us running around in circle." Sheppard concluded.
"That's it!" Carter declared. Everyone turned and looked at Carter, expecting a big flashy explanation.
"What's it?" Sheppard asked.
"Ten thousand years ago, Atlantis was on another planet all together. And that is the planet where the Ancients fled to Earth from." Carter explained. Nobody understood.
"Lantea!" Carter said. "The Leviathan is on Lantea."
"What about that cool device yo found in Janus' lab?" Sheppard asked.
"It must be a way of homing in on the ship." Carter guessed, her guesses were usually right.
"Requesting permission. . ." Sheppard never finished his sentence.
"Granted!" Woolsey said, knowing Sheppard could find the ship save the city.
Earth - Stargate Command
"Now, as far as I can tell, the Ark of the Covenant is a key to operating the Leviathan." Daniel said, managing to cut down his usual long-winded explanation.
"And you know where it is?" General Landry asked.
"Not exactly." Daniel admitted. "But my information points to it being hidden deep inside a cave in Mt. Sinai."
"What am I going to tell the Egyptian government.?" General Landry asked. "If we tell them that the Ark of the Covenant has been in their borders for the last few thousand years, they're going to demand full possession of it."
"All I know is, if we don't acquire it, then the entire Atlantis expedition will be forced to give up the city of the Ancients, or worse, they all die." Daniel urged.
"What do you propose?" General Landry requested.
Atlantis - Gate room.
Larrin emerged from an active wormhole.
"Sheppard, you always seem to need my help." Larrin smirked.
"You heard about the Wraith fleet that's on it's way?" Sheppard asked as the gate shut off.
"We caught wind of the Intel the Genii had obtained." Larrin admitted.
"When they finish with us, they'll likely turn their attention to the rest of the galaxy." Sheppard warned.
Larrin was losing patience.
"Get to the point, Sheppard." Larrin begged.
"We need ships." Sheppard admitted.
"Again?" Larrin boastfully inquired.
"Again." Sheppard replied
"To help defend Atlantis?" Larrin guessed, to which Sheppard nodded.
"You do know that all of our ships can't defend against a Wraith incursion of this magnitude." Larrin reminded Sheppard.
"We know." Sheppard replied. "That's why we're going for a little help." Sheppard cryptically explained.
"How are you getting there? You can't spare a ship capable of hyperspace travel." Larrin pointed out.
"True but thanks to the Replicators that we destroyed, there is a gate in orbit over the planet." Sheppard informed.
"What do you say? We fight side by side one more time." Sheppard asked.
"Fine, I'll contact some of our colonies, and see what I can come up with." Larrin agreed
"In the meantime, I'm going on a little trip." Sheppard said.
Woolsey was standing clear, he had heard some stories about Larrin, and wanted to keep a safe distance away.
As Sheppard walked away from Larrin, and towards Woolsey, Sheppard gave Chuck the go ahead to dial the gate.
"Now that we've taken care of that, I'm going up to the jumper bay." Sheppard said walking away. Then came back. "Oh, would you mind if I took Zelenka?"
Woolsey pulled a face that seemed to say 'You want McKay AND Zelenka?'
"If we do find the ship, we'll need them both." Sheppard rationalized.
"Fine."
Sheppard left to meet his team in the jumper bay.
Earth - Stargate Command
"It's just as we thought." General Landry announced.
"They want to take full possession of the Ark?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah. But the good news is we've managed to get permission to borrow it for 'scientific study'." General Landry announced.
"And?" Daniel asked know full well there was a 'but'.
"They want one of their people to be there when the Ark is located. Heck, I wouldn't mind being there." General Landry admitted. "But I've got my hands full right now."
"The Odyssey will beam you over there when you're ready."
Daniel nodded.
Planetary Orbit - Lantea
The gate that once acted as a weapon over Lantea activated, and a puddle jumper emerged from the event horizon.
The orbit had decayed in the last two years, but it was still somewhat stable.
"According to this, the ship is submerged." Carter said.
"I guess we're all going for a swim." Sheppard said as he brought the ship into the atmosphere, and soon the jumper was skimming the crystal blue water.
Carter was watching the device she found in Janus' lab, while McKay was trying to look over Carter's shoulder.
"I don't believe this. I'm still not getting a clear reading." Carter mourned.
Out of nowhere a Flagisalis leapt from the water right in the path of the jumper. Sheppard was forced to submerge the ship and accelerate to avoid hitting the giant fish.
A few seconds after the jumper was submerged by the ocean Carter made an intriguing revelation.
"That's odd. The signal just cleared up." Carter revealed.
"So where do we go, Wolenczak?" Sheppard asked.
Carter ignored the comment, then pointed.
"There!"
It was almost completely blended into the seabed except for a group of Flagisalis that were swimming around it.
"That's real nice of them, pointing the way." Sheppard said.
It took a few minutes to reach the docking bay, and board the ship.
McKay found a terminal and interfaced his tablet, while Ronon and Teyla were deployed to secure the area.
"I don't believe it." McKay began.
"What's wrong, McKay?" Carter asked.
"Wrong? Nothing, I wish we had this ship when the Replicator satellite attacked. Or during the Siege of Atlantis. I mean this ship alone could have taken on the entire Replicator fleet." At this point McKay was excitedly rambling.
"McKay!" Everyone said all at once.
"Sorry, this ship is amazing. I'm reading eight drone platforms, the shield generators are more powerful than anything that Atlantis' shields. It looks like they meshed Asgard shields with Ancient shields." Rodney was almost salivating. "On top of all that, I'm reading ten Asgard beam weapon emitters."
Carter took the tablet from Rodney and looked over the data.
"From the looks of things there the internal power grid was designed to operate on multiple Z.P.M.'s" Carter observed.
"Multiple? How many?" Sheppard asked.
"I won't know until we get to the bridge." Carter replied.
Earth - Tunnel inside Mt. Sinai
Daniel Jackson and an Egyptian guide had spent the last few hours poking though the deep tunnels beneath Mt. Sinai.
As they rounded a corner the guide spoke up.
"You never answered my question, why do you seek the Ark of the Covenant?" the guide inquired.
"Well, that's kind of a long story." Daniel replied.
"We have plenty of time." the guide prodded.
"The story is also classified." Daniel defended.
"So, you could tell me, but then you'd have to kill me?" the guide asked.
"Something like that." Daniel replied.
There was a pause.
"Okay, but it had better be worth it." the guide joked.
Rounding another corner, they found a dead end. But there was something odd about it. There seemed to be some odd rock mixed in with everything else, it almost looked like a symbol. Not just any symbol, it looked Ancient.
"That looks like writing." Daniel said.
The guide was confused. "Are you sure?" He had never seen such a language.
"Yes." Daniel confirmed.
"Where?" the guide asked, then stopped himself. "Let me guess 'classified'?"
Daniel touched the symbol, and the entire wall flickered and vanished.
The guide muttered something in his native tongue, his voice betrayed a hint of superstitious fear.
Daniel convinced the guide to follow him a little further, and soon the tunnel opened up to a vast cavern that housed an ancient city, hidden by time and Earth.
The cavern was exactly how he remembered it from the vision from the Ascended being.
Oddly a faint glimmer of light was coming from the ceiling of the cavern.
"What's causing that light?" Daniel asked, knowing that he was in fact several hundred feet from the surface.
He and the guide looked towards the source of the light and found there were no fissures leading to the surface. But there was a floating object in the middle of the cavern floating high above the ground.
It was a glowing sphere, which was connected to the ground by a pillar of light, at the base of the pillar of light was a building with a pillared building.
"I'm going to go check it out." Daniel said approaching the building.
Inside the building was bare except for the pillar of light extending through the ceiling in landing on the floor. The light seemed to be pointing towards something.
"There it is." Daniel said.
The guide made a reference to one or more deity. "The Ark of the Covenant." The guide finally said in awe.
The pair made their way to the Ark. Daniel took several steps forward, and began to examine the Ark.
The guide said nothing at first.
After several seconds a tense sound echoed off of the walls, a gun click.
"Step away from the Ark, Dr. Jackson." the guide threatened, obviously he was not a guide.
"Let me guess, you're a mercenary, posing as a guide that brought a gun?" Daniel surmised.
"This is going straight back to my people." the guide said.
"That's going to be a bit of a problem." Daniel admitted.
"Why's that?" the guide asked.
"Just call it a hunch." Daniel said as he and the Ark were beamed away.
Odyssey - Bridge
A bright light of the Asgard beaming technology grew from nowhere and subsided with Daniel and the Ark in the midst of where the bright light had appeared.
Mitchell stood, with his arms crossed. "You have it I see." The Colonel said.
"No, this is a souvenir I got from Marakesh." Daniel joked, as some crew members came forward to take the Ark to an onboard lab. Daniel was adamant that they not touch the Ark itself.
Daniel stuck around and told Mitchell about what happened, then caught up to the Ark.
"Inform Stargate Command of our status. Then set a course for the Supergate, and let's be on our way." Mitchell ordered.
Leviathan - Bridge
Carter, Sheppard, and McKay arrived on the bridge.
McKay and Carter sat down at key stations meant for monitoring internal systems.
"From the looks of this, the ship's main systems each ran of their own Z.P.M." Carter observed.
"She's right, Weapons, shields. But it looks like the drone platforms were tied to a different Z.P.M. than the Asgard beam weapons." McKay noted.
"I didn't notice this." Carter began.
"What?" Sheppard asked.
"It looks like the shields ran off of six Z.P.M.'s" Carter said.
"How is that possible?" Sheppard asked.
"Well, from the schematic, this ship is several times larger than Atlantis. It would require a lot more power to operate than the city. And all the extra weapons would drain a lot of power in addition to the shields." Carter surmised.
"Colonel Sheppard, please come in." Teyla requested over the radio.
"Go ahead." Sheppard said.
"We are in a weapons bay of some sort, you may want to come down here." Teyla requested.
"On my way." Sheppard said then looked at Carter and McKay. "Will you be okay if I left alone?" Sheppard asked.
"We'll be fine." McKay spiritedly replied.
Sheppard left the bridge, and found a nearby transporter.
Soon arriving at Teyla's location he found a vast room with hundreds of shelves lines with drones. The aisles were numerous, and seemed to go on for hundreds of meters. Sheppard contacted Rodney.
"Rodney, Teyla found a room full of drones." Sheppard said.
Rodney had been tracking him, and made an intriguing conclusion.
"The interesting thing is, that's not the only room full of drones there is. According to the log, there are at least fifteen other rooms like the one you're in." McKay paused. "Sheppard, there's another room, not far from where you are now. I'm getting some interesting readings." McKay asked, hoping Sheppard would check out the room.
"Define 'interesting', Rodney." Sheppard demanded.
"According to my readings it's perfectly safe." Rodney replied.
"Ok, but if I turn into a bug again, I'm coming for you." Sheppard threatened.
Following Rodney's directions, Sheppard and Teyla arrived at a room much like the room full of drones, except for one crucial detain. Instead of drones, Sheppard found Zero Point Modules.
Supergate - Pegasus galaxy
The Supergate activates, and two Daedalus class battle cruisers emerged from the event horizon
The Odyssey, and the Daedalus. Waiting for them is three Wraith Hive ships, oddly the Hives do not open fire.
"Colonel Caldwell, the lead hive ship is hailing us." Major Marks announced.
"Let's see it." Caldwell permitted, only to see Todd's face on the screen.
"Have you been informed as to the situation?" Todd asked.
"We have." Caldwell replied, expecting a lengthy conversation, about this and that. Maybe something about mistrust.
"We need to hurry to Atlantis, time is of the essence." Todd succinctly said, then closed the channel.
"What now, sir?" Major Marks asked.
"Signal the Odyssey to get to Lantea, and set course for Atlantis." Caldwell said.
There you go, help is on the way, and not too soon. As far a a question I was asked. Yes, the prior will render some aid in the battle, not the aid you are probably think of, but help is help I suppose.