Authors Note:
Thanks for the reviews (plus the info re blood colour) ... glad you all liked my Long Goodbye. Still lots to come in the story where hopefully all your questions will be answered. And now, on with Inferno!
Chapter 31: We found the ship!
Some weeks later I was still doggedly finishing my thorough search of the Tower inventory even though I didn't expect to find anything else. When that proved to be the case I happily relegated it to the back of the cupboard and moved on to some of the devices Rodney had wanted me to investigate. I really wanted to find the Imperium device but until someone came back from a mission with some intel on the Ancient ship, my project was pretty much dead in the water. I took every opportunity during my own off world missions to ask anyone I came across if they knew any stories of a great Ancient warship. There were some legends, but none that fit the profile of the Hippaforalkus.
"Sabina, can you meet me in Doctor Weir's office," John requested over the radio a couple of weeks after the whole Michael incident had been put to rest.
"On my way," I acknowledged. It took a few minutes for me to get there ... John and Elizabeth were chuckling about something when I arrived.
"Sabina," John got to his feet with a visible air of excitement.
"What happened?" I asked quickly.
"We found the ship!" John announced. "The Hippaforalkus - we found her. She's in a hanger on Taranis."
"Nice," I complimented him. "Can I go to back with you and take a look?"
"I knew that'd be the first thing you asked," John smiled. "Grab your stuff - Rodney suggested a mini generator too. Meet me at the gate in five."
"Wait," Doctor Weir rose from her chair. "I should head back with you and begin negotiations with the Taranan leader."
The trip through the gate was uneventful and within an hour John and I were making our way down to the Ancient ship.
"Norina is very attractive isn't she?" I mentioned casually. John had introduced me to the lead scientist as well as to Chancellor Lycus who'd given us permission to look at the ship.
"I didn't really notice," John said distractedly. We'd taken the elevator deep into the facility and he was leading the way down a long corridor back to the hangar. "Although Rodney seemed to think so."
"She certainly noticed you," I couldn't stop myself from adding. I glanced across at John quickly, almost groaning aloud when I saw the amused smirk on his face. "What?" I demanded.
"You're jealous!" John seemed to be enjoying himself at my expense.
"No I'm not," I denied. "I just find the sight of every blonde bimbo we come across throwing themselves at you ... nauseating."
"Nah," John disagreed, still smiling. "You're jealous."
"Yeah well," I said uncomfortably. "I'm glad you find it more amusing than I would."
"If it makes you feel any better," John offered, "the next time we see Norina you can stake your claim so she knows I'm off limits."
"That might just make me feel better," I accepted the offer, laughing at the look of sudden apprehension on his face. "Don't worry Colonel," I teased. "It'll be ... relatively painless."
"I'll look forward to it," John promised in a tone that made me realise perhaps I shouldn't have teased him. We'd arrived at the hanger doors and I caught my first sight of the Hippaforalkus - her size dwarfed the Daedalus and on the surface she seemed relatively unharmed.
"Let's go take a look inside," John motioned for me to follow him around the balcony towards some stairs leading down towards the ship. I shifted my heavy pack to the other shoulder and strode briskly after him. Knowing there wouldn't be any power on the ship Rodney had sent instructions for what to bring back from Atlantis. It would have been easier if he could have just come with us to get the ship powered up but John didn't want the Taranans to know how important the ship might actually be.
"You know," John drew my attention back to him, "we can't keep calling the ship the Hippaforalkus - it's too much of a mouthful."
"What do you suggest then," I asked.
"I'll tell you one thing - we're not naming it the Enterprise." John said with a grin.
"Rodney will be so disappointed," I quipped.
"This is the sister ship of the Aurora," John reminded me. "She deserves a name that embodies the same spirit ... like the Orion!"
"The Orion?" I tested its sound. "Nice ... much better than Hippaforalkus ... no offence to the General of the same name, of course."
"Of course," John agreed, looking quite pleased with himself.
We made our way cautiously inside - shining my torch around the room I located some text on the wall indicating the direction of the Control Room.
"This way," I pointed to a corridor heading into the ship. Proceeding at that same cautious pace we arrived at the Control Room a short time later. I set my pack down and immediately began pulling things out. Sitting on the floor near one of the consoles I leaned under and located the access panel. Pulling it off and handing it over to John I shone my torch in to assess what I'd have to do next. Realising this one would be simple enough that I'd be able to rig up the portable generator without having to bother Rodney I set to work.
A few minutes later I was rewarded with the pleasing sight of power returning to the consoles around the room.
"Good work," John congratulated me.
"Thank Rodney," I countered. "He's been giving me a crash course on Ancient technology power ups - he said I had the uncanny knack of finding myself in situations where I needed more power so I might as well learn how to do it myself."
"Go Rodney," John drawled. "What now?"
"I need to search the ships database to see what they did with the device," I said. "You don't have to hang around ... this could take a while."
"I'm staying," John said in a tone that told me not to bother arguing. "Rodney's okay for now and I'm not leaving you on the ship by yourself."
"All right," I agreed. "Just don't distract me okay." Hooking my laptop into the ships systems I brought up my search programs and began looking for any information on the Imperium project.
"Okay this is interesting," I motioned John over from where he'd been standing guard. "They were coming here to pick up the Imperium device."
"So where is it?" John looked at my screen curiously.
"Still in the facility," I said. "The Orion sustained some damage on the trip here - that explains why she's in the hangar. Before they could repair her they got the call from Atlantis that they'd sunk the city and were retreating back to Earth. The crew and all the residents were evacuated directly through the gate ... abandoning the ship and the Imperium project."
"Does that say where in the facility the device is located?" John asked with a hopeful expression.
"Of course not," I chided him. "Since when was anything we wanted from the Ancients that easy to find?!"
"So I guess now you want to go back to the facility and start searching their database?" John grumbled.
"Yes please," I smiled winningly up at him, turning to gather up all my equipment. Without the mini generator the room was plunged back into darkness - we made the journey out of the ship by torchlight as we had the trip in.
John led me back to where Rodney was still working with Norina. Remembering my threat to 'stake my claim' on John I grabbed his hand just before we entered the room. John raised an eyebrow at me but I studiously avoided looking at him. Out of sight of Rodney and Norina John ran his hand down my back and past my waist until he'd reached a spot ripe for pinching.
"Hey!" I protested as I jumped away from his hand. I blushed furiously as John laughed before pulling me back into him and kissing the side of my neck.
"Do you really need to do that everywhere we go?" Rodney asked condescendingly.
"I never really thought about it before," John answered lightly, "but yes we do." He made a point of kissing me again before turning back to see Rodney trying to maintain his irritated look. He'd never admit it but Rodney enjoyed the banter he shared with John, more so since they'd repaired the rift between them after Doranda. I didn't think it bothered him as much as he made out whenever he had to witness a public display of affection between John and me.
"Just ignore them," Rodney instructed Norina, who was looking on with what I liked to think was a disappointed look. "They do this all the time."
"So there!" I thought uncharitably.
"How goes it, Rodney?" John asked, back into business mode.
"Uh, I was just, uh, still running diagnostics," Rodney stammered. I looked over at Norina and smiled slightly when I realised Rodney was just a little smitten with the lovely scientist.
"Still?" John goaded Rodney, also well aware that Rodney found Norina distractingly attractive. "Thought you would have had that fixed by now. If you want, I can call Doctor Zelenka. I'm sure he could, uh ..."
"I can handle it, thank you!" Rodney said angrily. "In fact I was just about to, uh, show Norina the generator log which, uh, shows that, uh ..." Rodney picked up his computer tablet nervously and looked at it quickly. His expression turned from uncomfortable to sickened in a heartbeat as he finished his sentence "... you've been running the shield continuously for over a year now."
"Yes. When the device was activated," Norina clearly had no idea what the problem was, "you told me what it was called ..."
"The long range scanners," Rodney prompted. "What about them?"
"When they indicated a sudden rise in Wraith activity last year," Norina continued, "Chancellor Lycus ordered me to increase the strength of the shield."
"Well, that's unfortunate," Rodney said with worry evident on his face.
"Why?" Norina frowned as she looked over at Rodney.
"Because the Ancients didn't design these things to run continuously at maximum capacity," Rodney informed her. He picked up another laptop and took it to one of the other consoles. "Look, shields are for emergencies only, Norina. When you shut down the alarms, you overrode the failsafes and that means that we're ..." Rodney paused to activate the laptop. As before his expression went from faintly troubled to horrified as he registered what the laptop was showing him. "Oh, no," he said sickly.
"What it is?" Norina demanded. The three of us walked over to Rodney to see what he was looking at.
"The reason the Ancients chose to power this facility on geothermal energy is because we're sitting right smack in the caldera of a dormant super volcano ... or should I say formerly dormant, because drawing all of this energy from the magma chamber has made it extremely active." Rodney said rapidly.
"So ... things are gonna get worse," John cut to the chase.
"I think we can safely say that things are gonna get ... ," Rodney responded, pausing as if searching for a better word, "... worse. Yes."
Realising that time was once again against me I pulled John to the side and whispered "I need to look at the schematics for this facility right now."
"Do it," John agreed. "Just be discrete about why you're doing it."
"Norina?" I turned back to where she was still standing by Rodney. "Would it be possible for me to look through the database here? I work with the Ancient language and technology back on our planet ... having the chance to explore your data would be invaluable to my research."
"Of course Sabina," Norina instantly agreed. She indicated one of the other consoles "this console in linked into the main database ... you should find something of interest there."
Thanking her quickly I moved over to the console and made a show of looking through the index before picking something at random. Norina watched me for a few moments before turning away when Rodney asked her a question. Once her attention was away from me connected my laptop and pulled up the facility schematics. I scanned them looking for something to jump out at me - I didn't expect a big neon sign flashing "secret research" and was surprised when I discovered one of the rooms had actually been labelled Project Imperium.
While I'd been accessing their data John had reported in to Doctor Weir. She and Chancellor Lycus arrived before I could report my find to John so I moved over to join them, bidding my time until they'd been made aware of the current problem.
"I don't see any volcano," Doctor Weir turned away from the window where the flat plains stretching out in the distance were clearly displayed.
"Because you're standing inside it right now," Rodney told her. "Look, when you think of regular volcanoes, you think Mount St Helens," Rodney held his fingers in a steeple to demonstrate the shape most commonly associated with volcanos.
"And super volcano?" Doctor Weir asked.
"Yellowstone National Park," Rodney said, "with a caldera over fifty miles wide and a massive sea of molten rock just beneath the surface."
"So the Ancients built the facility here in order to tap into all that geothermal energy," Doctor Weir questioned.
"Right," Rodney confirmed. "And these things don't erupt very often. Thousands, oftentimes hundreds of thousands of years go by between blasts."
"So the Ancients thought what the hell, plenty of energy down there to run the shield?" John quizzed.
"Yeah," Rodney said irritably, "but not continuously."
"By doing so," Norina informed Lycus, "we've increased the pressure of the magma chamber."
"It's expanded to over forty miles now, and increasing." Rodney said like that should illustrate the magnitude of the problem to the rest of us.
"Can it be stopped?" Doctor Weir asked.
"No. The damage is already done," Rodney admitted unhappily. "Look, a significant hotspot rift has opened. The pressure will keep building as magma continues pouring in directly beneath us."
"Is there anything we can do to relieve the pressure somewhere else?" John thought for a second. "Uh, maybe we can fire a drone down into the crust on the other side of the caldera."
"Every problem has a military solution in your world, doesn't it?" Rodney complained heatedly. "Look, when this baby goes, the whole thing goes."
"Then we need to evacuate your people," John announced, turning to Chancellor Lycus.
"Is there anywhere on this planet we can help relocate you to?" Doctor Weir asked the Chancellor.
"Look, you're still not getting it," Rodney said heatedly. "Listen to me, all of you. When this thing erupts, the force of the explosion will be over ten thousand times greater than the blast that destroyed Mount St Helens. It will obliterate half of this continent."
"There must be other continents," Doctor Weir insisted.
"The dust cloud will envelop the planet within weeks, blocking out enough sunlight to kill every living thing," Rodney took away any hope that the planet would remain liveable. "We are talking about an Extinction Level Event." He turned to Chancellor Lycus and tried to appeal to him directly. "Look, the only option you've got is to evacuate your people to another planet -- and I would advise doing it sooner rather than later."
"Excuse me," Lycus looked at us all for a moment before turning and leaving the room. On his way out he turned to a guard and ordered quietly "Watch them carefully."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Rodney said dramatically, "was my volume turned right down?!" He looked at us and added "Did he not hear me?!"
As Doctor Weir hurried after the Chancellor I pulled John back to my console.
"Look," I pointed to the schematic display. "This room is marked Project Imperium, and it's only a few levels below us. I could be there and back inside half an hour."
"You heard Rodney," John whispered back. "The volcano could blow at any time."
"I know," I whispered heatedly. "Which is why I need to go right now. It'll take a while to get everyone organised for an evacuation, won't it?"
"I suppose," John agreed reluctantly.
"So I can use that time to go to this room," I pointed out. "They won't even notice I'm gone."
John sighed in frustration, turning away and running a hand through his hair as he thought about the risks. Turning back to me he nodded. "Okay ... but only until we've got these people ready for evacuation."
"I'll be as quick as I can," I promised. I turned to make my escape right away but John pulled me back to look at him.
"When I say it's finished, you'll drop what you're doing and make your way straight back to me," John ordered harshly. "Are we clear?"
"Yes," I looked into his eyes, registering the worry and doubt there. He was letting me go against his better judgement and my heart sang that he trusted me that much. "The second I get the word that we're evacuating, I'm out of there," I promised.
"Good," John let me go. He looked around to see that everyone in the room was occupied. The guards were still standing at the door and John ordered loudly "Make your way back to the gate and let Atlantis know our situation."
"Yes Sir," I replied seriously, nodding at him before turning and moving confidently to the door. The guards stepped aside and let me through with no protest. Only when I was sure they were no longer watching me did I veer off and head for the elevators. Rushing inside I pushed the button to get the lift moving, fingers crossed there'd be no one around down there.