Review reply: There was no review related to Episode 17 to reply to, only about the new story. So no replies here.
A/N: Italic text is translated from Ancient to English in this Episode.
Bridge. Destiny. Unknown Galaxy.
After the attack on Destiny things had been quite, no attacks from the Nakai or the drones, no disasters or catastrophic events, it had been right out boring according to some, now however Destiny was detecting something far away in space, of their beaten path, and she had changed course all of a sudden.
"Rush, what's happening?" Young screamed as he came running inside the bridge.
"Destiny changed course after receiving a signal, it looks like an Ancient distress beacon." Rush replied.
"Get us back on course."
"We've tried, controls have been overridden. Chloe is trying to find out why." Eli replied and gestured towards Chloe who was sitting in the control chair at the back.
"I'm sorry to say it, but looks like we're along for the ride, just like old times." Rush said and leaned back in the chair, giving up on taking back control.
"What systems do we have access to?" Young said
"Pretty much everything, except what we need to change course or drop out of FTL." Eli said.
"ETA?"
"Two minutes, Destiny is pushing all available power into the engines." Chloe answered.
"There's been a lot of chatter coming in on the subspace channels." Eli noted.
"Anything useful?" Young asked
"The only thing I've been able to get out of it is that Destiny sent away several bursts through subspace, all messages that I've looked through so far contains the coordinates we're headed for, almost immediately there was several replies, almost all containing a confirmation, a few saying negative." Eli said
"General, those messages are identical to the ones sent when Destiny received escort to recharge, except this was sent in a much larger quantity." Rush said.
"So if we're in luck there will be several command class ships there to protect us?" Young said.
"Yes, if we're in luck." Rush said skeptically.
"Several ships approaching through hyperspace, ETA to target five seconds." Eli reported.
Then Destiny dropped out of FTL and a second later a huge number of hyperspace windows opened, spitting out just as many ships, all of them being command class ships in different states of disrepair, some barely hanging together, others where just mildly damaged and some where in the same condition as when they departure Earth.
These ships all centered around a single ships, blown to pieces, this one however was not like Destiny, the seed ships or the command class ships, instead it was much larger and had a slightly different shape, instead of a single long wedge there was two and the wing at the back was slightly curved upwards, but that look could just have been due to the massive damage the ship had suffered, floating around it was a large belt of debris, showing clear signs of coming from a battle long forgotten.
"Status report." Young ordered.
"Hundreds of command class ships have dropped out of hyperspace and have taken up defensive positions around the derelict ship." Rush answered.
"I take it that signal is transmitted from that ship?"
"Yes, it appears to have been involved in a large battle a long time ago and seeing that this is a distress signal it might have transmitting it all this time." Rush said.
"I can see that it's been in some kind of battle with my own eyes Rush. Can we go into FTL?" Young scolded.
"No, Destiny has put up a digital barrier around this area of space, we can't get away from here, but we have control again." Chloe answered.
"General, the ship must have brought us here for some reason." Rush said.
"The debris field appears to be made up of destroyed drone control ships and their drones." Eli said.
"Eli, get over to that ship and find out what you can. Take Ginn and two teams along with you." Young ordered after doing so thinking.
"Yes sir." Eli said as he got out of his chair and rushed of to gather the people.
Hangar. Destiny. Unknown Galaxy.
"We're ready to be beamed over to the derelict ship." Eli said over the FMC as he, Ginn and the two assault teams of marines were standing by in the small hangar of Destiny.
"We can't do that Eli. The ships shields are still up and even after all this time they block our attempts to beam you inside, you'll have to take a jumper." Rush replied.
"Copy that." Eli said as he made his way to one of the two jumpers, followed by Ginn and the two teams.
Jumper Two. Hangar. Destiny. Unknown Galaxy.
"Jumper two is requesting permission to take of." Ginn said as she sat in the pilots seat with Eli in the copilots seat.
"Permission granted." Rush replied as the hangar doors started to open.
As she heard the words and saw the doors beginning to open Ginn lifted of and flew the jumper out of Destiny, just as the gap between the doors was big enough to fit the jumper, then they closed behind them. As the jumper flew further and further away from Destiny the crew got nervous, out in open space without cover from Destiny, a single shot from any of the ships main guns would evaporate the jumper.
Then they reached the derelict ship and tried to go through the shields of the ship, just as they would on any other Ancient ship, they got a surprise as the ship hit the shields instead of going through.
"Destiny, we have a small problem with the shield." Eli sent back to Destiny.
"This is Destiny, we appear to be transmitting an access code." Rush replied.
"Copy that Destiny. Shields have just been extended around us." Eli reported as he saw the ships shields flowing over the jumper.
After the jumper was inside the shield it moved again and they soon found themselves landing in what could have once been a hangar, or any other room for that matter.
Hangar. Derelict Ship. Unknown Galaxy.
As the group got out of the jumper they felt the air getting sucked out as the ship had lost life-support a long time ago. The only light available was that coming from their own suits and equipment, moving on into the corridor beyond the room emergency lights started to come on, but only in one direction and after a short discussion they chose to follow the lights.
After walking for a few minutes they reached a room similar to the gate room of Destiny, only bigger and without a gate, after retracing their steps in his head Eli concluded that the lay out was just like Destiny, but built in a larger scale, and so he took of up the stairs and made his way to the control interface room.
There they found a, one by one by one meter, black cube connected straight into the ship. Ignoring it Eli and Ginn walked up to one console each getting to work on finding out more about the ship, but as they tried to power up the consoles nothing happened. Deciding that it was power shortage Eli ordered one of the marines to hand over the ZPM he carried for the portable shield and another to hand over the portable shield generator. After getting the ZPM and the shield generator Eli opened up the shield generator and retrieved the holder for the ZPM as well as the cable needed.
Then he took the cable and plugged it straight into the central pillar, before taking the ZPM and inserting it, sending power through the colossal form of the ship.
"E…i w…t's hap…ni…ship … po…r …hyp…dr…e." Rush voice crackled over the comm, then the ship accelerated.
"Eli, we just entered hyperspace." Ginn shouted across the room from the now powered console.
"I can see that." Eli said as he tried to override the jump.
"Sir, look at this." A marine said as he came through one of the doors dragging the corpse of a cyborg behind him.
"The drones must have boarded the ship." Eli said after looking up at it for just a second.
After trying to shut it down for several minutes Eli went over to the ZPM and pulled it out, shutting of power to the entire ship. Then he walked back to the console and sent in some nanites to try and find the problem.
Bridge. Destiny. Unknown Galaxy.
"What did just happen?" Young demanded just as he realized that the ship had jumped away through hyperspace with part of his crew still on board.
"The ship powered up and opened a hyperspace window." Rush said, just as half of the command class ships jumped away after the derelict ship, leaving half of the ships on guard duty around Destiny.
"I thought it was badly damaged."
"Yes, so did I."
"Can we follow the ship?"
"No, we're still locked in this part of space."
"Can we at least track them?"
"No, that wasn't normal hyperspace, the drive might be so damaged that it entered at a completely different frequency, one we can't track them in."
Control Interface Room. Derelict Ship. Unknown Galaxy.
After assessing some of the damage through the use of the nanites Eli and Ginn had come to the conclusion that some basic systems like the subspace transmitter, that was now broken as the power from the ZPM had overloaded it, and more advanced systems like shields and weapons were under control of one part of the ship, much like Destiny's control system, and that most of the ships systems both basic and advanced systems were under the control of a backup system, probably installed in case the main system was destroyed.
And so Eli and Ginn set about to repair the badly damaged ship in such a way as to allow the primary control system to retake control in the hopes of reasoning with it.
First they set free most of their nanites on the rooms which had taken damage, this way the amount of nanites increased and they received much needed materials for the repairs, while the nanites did that Eli went back to the jumper and removed its power source, with it they would be able to get limited power to the ship, but not enough to allow the ship to make a hyperspace jump.
Then, once Eli had returned, they plugged it in through a slot Ginn had worked on opening while Eli was away.
After that came the work of pinpointing the damaged areas of the connection between the two control systems, which proved to be extremely easy as there was only one broken connection, the one going out of that room to the rest of the ship. Hopping for a quick fix Eli redirected the nanites to the damaged section and only a few minutes later the connection was repaired and Eli felt happy for a second before he received another diagnose, this one showing the short stump that they had managed to connect to split in two and was then destroyed again only a few meters further away.
So once again Eli redirected the nanites to the destroyed section of the connection and after double the time of the previous time he received another diagnose, showing just about the same as before, a meter of the connection was reconnected then it was destroyed again, this time there wasn't any splits. After doing this over and over again, only to reach more and more destroyed connections Ginn came up to Eli and stopped him.
"We need another way." Ginn said as she walked up to Eli and put her hand on his shoulder.
"The only way we could get back to Destiny is if we can get the ship to turn around when we insert the ZPM and to do that we need to connect this thing to the secondary control system." Eli said and pointed at the AI core.
"So lets fly it over there with the jumper." Ginn said.
"We wont be able to do that, the shields would stop us just like before, the only reason we got through is because this guy wanted us to, if we plugged him out he would be unable to operate the shields." Eli said before he walked up to the black cube and kicked it.
As he did this a small flicker waved past inside the room, intrigued by this Eli kicked it again, a little bit harder, but hard enough that he cracked it, revealing the inside of it. Looking down inside it Eli saw that several of the crystal circuits were damaged and so he picked out a tool designed by the ancients to repair damaged control crystals or change them all together, depending on the use. Taking the pen shaped tool he begun the process of repairing the crystals, all the while Ginn was working on the console to see if there was anything they could do and the marines were walking around in the nearby rooms, securing the immediate area, one room at a time.
Then just as Eli heard gunshots from outside the room he finished the last crystal.
"Soon you won't be putting your fingers all over my core." A man dressed in a very formal Ancient garb said as he appeared.
"Sir, we have hostile robots on their way to your location." The voice of one marine was heard over the comm, and in the background gunfire could be heard.
"Copy that." Ginn said as she rushed out of the room to help the marines, leaving Eli with the Ancient man.
"Why are you attacking us?" Eli said to the Ancient.
"So now you pay attention to me?" The Ancient replied.
"You just became visible to us."
"Then maybe your tinkering wasn't all that bad."
"Hostiles have retreated and are standing by at a distance." One marine reported.
"Do not engage." Eli replied. "Why would you order your boarding defenses to attack us just now and not when we arrived?"
"How would you like it if I put my shoe through your head and started to poke around inside?"
"Ah, you have a point there. Sorry about that."
"Well I can't be angry now that you appear to have fixed something those blasted cyborgs ruined."
"I didn't quite get that last part." Eli said as his Ancient failed to translate the words.
"Blasted is the same thing as damned or cursed, cyborgs is the same thing as robot, ruined is the same as broken or destroyed."
"Ah, thank you for that, my ancient is a bit rusty."
"Ancient? Have so much time passed that we've come to be known as ancients?"
"Oh, only a few million years."
"Only, a few millions years? Then I take it you're not one of us?"
"No, we are the planted race of your race."
"Ah, the seed species you mean?" The Ancient said after scratching himself in the head for a minute as he tried to understand what Eli had said.
"Sounds right. Any way, I'd love to continue this conversation but we really need to get back to Destiny."
"So the old lady is still around then? I feared she would be destroyed when I stopped controlling the escorting ships."
"She is in better shape than ever, it looks like she have started requesting support whenever she needed it."
"I wish I could help you, but as you've probably seen by now my ship is in really bad shape and is being controlled by the programing that takes over if I'm put out of order or are unable to perform my duties. Its primary programing is to make its way to the repair-ship, unfortunately since the subspace receiver is still under my control it doesn't know that the ship was destroyed long ago, just after we protected it at the location I was left adrift at."
"Destiny was locked in place after we picked up your distress signal, if we could get back to her we could get enough supplies to repair at least part of the damage if not the entire ship."
"There was no gate installed on this ship so you can't go that way, and as long as I'm out of the system there's no way for you turn around the ship either and go back."
"Is there any way to unlock Destiny by remote?"
"Yes, if we could send my code then your people could unlock the ship. But when you plugged in the ZPM it blew the subspace transmitter."
"Any chance that we could repair it?"
"Maybe, it's three decks down, you're free to take a look at it."
"I'll do that if you remove the robots."
"I'll recall the robots." The Ancient said before vanishing.
"Didn't know you were that good at Ancient." Ginn said from the doorway, were she was leaning against the frame.
"Didn't know you knew it was Ancient." Eli replied.
"What else would someone in an Ancient uniform be speaking? I may not have had the time to learn to speak Ancient, but anyone can draw that conclusion."
"Uh, I guess I didn't think of that."
"So what did he say?"
"He's the captain of this ship and the commander of the fleet protecting Destiny, a long time ago he was involved in a battle trying to protect a repair ship, that ship was later destroyed in a battle but the ships backup system is unaware of that as it doesn't have access to the subspace transmitter. The primary programing of the backup system is to return the ship to the repair ship so that it may be restored to working order, that's why it jumped to hyperspace, it's trying to track down the repair ship."
"So how do we stop the ship? That was an Ancient, so I bet he gave you a way of solving the problem."
"The only way to turn the ship around is to get the Ancient back in control and to do that we need to repair the ship, but to do that we need Destiny's gate."
"So how are we going to go about getting Destiny here?"
"Well if we can repair the subspace transmitter he'll send the access code to Destiny, allowing the crew to disable the lock and get over here."
"So what are we waiting for?" Ginn said as she turned around and walked out of the room, only to return a second later. "Which way?"
"This way." Eli said as he walked of in the other direction, then he called back the marines.
Walking down three floors the group soon reached the broken subspace transmitter, thought broken was not the right word, more like blown to hell, pieces of it was spread out across the entire corridor.
Walking up to it Eli knew that it was destroyed beyond repair long before he even examined it.
"I guess that plan didn't work out then." Ginn said as she took a closer look at the transmitter.
"No, but there's got to be another way to fix it."
"We're low on nanites and the ships is in a bad enough shape that I'd feel better if we didn't try to salvage anything from it."
"What about the one from the jumper, we've already taken the power source, so why not use that?"
"It might work, but I doubt that it has the necessary range."
"If we could integrate it here we should be able to give it enough power with the ZPM."
"But then the ship would jump away again."
"Yes, but we only need to send a short message, a few seconds, if we pull the ZPM straight after that Destiny's sensors will still be able to detect us from here."
"So what we send the code and our coordinates and hope they pick us up?"
"Yea, unless you've got a better plan."
"So you want to get the transmitter or clean up this mess?" Ginn said as she realized it was their only chance.
"I'll clean up here." Eli said as he got to work on the destroyed transmitter and the location it had been placed in, cleaning up to allow the one from the jumper to be integrated cleanly, meanwhile Ginn ran of to get the transmitter, followed by one of the teams.
Half an hour later they had managed to get the transmitter in place and were ready to get started.
"Ready?" Ginn asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be." Eli answered Ginn before turning to the Ancient, who stood next to them. "Ready to transmit the code and our coordinates?"
"Standing by" The Ancient answered.
"Lets do this then." Eli said as he pushed the ZPM inside for just a few seconds before removing it again. "Did it work?"
"Hard to say, they have received the message, but more than that I don't know. I'll go into standby to save power now." The Ancient said as he disappeared.
Bridge. Destiny. Unknown Galaxy.
"General, we've received what I'd say is an access code and a set of coordinates." Rush said as he looked up from a console.
"Destiny has been released from the movement limitations." Chloe said from the control chair.
"Did Eli and Ginn send that code?" Young asked.
"Hard to say General, but the coordinates that accompanied the code are in the direction they disappeared in." Rush answered.
"Chloe get us there." Young ordered before announcing to the crew what was happening.
A minute later Destiny accelerated and jumped to FTL, closely followed by its escorting fleet.
"The ship appears to have moved away from the coordinates, if only by a few solar systems." Rush announced as he picked up the ship on Destiny's sensors sometime later.
"Chloe…" Young begun before being cut of by said person.
"Already on it." She said as she recalculated the jump.
Half an hour later they dropped out of FTL and found themselves next to the derelict ship and its escort fleet.
"Can you establish contact with Eli or Ginn?" Young asked Rush.
"No, the shield of the other ship is interfering with the signal." Rush replied after trying a few times.
"We have a small object approaching from the other ship." The sensor officer reported, as Rush didn't have his attention fixed on the sensors.
Jumper. Derelict Ship. Unknown Galaxy.
After sending a signal to Destiny the group had made their way back to the jumper, before realizing that after scavenging so many parts from the jumper they would be unable to use it to go back. That's when Ginn had come up with the idea of plugging in the ZPM to one of the drive pods and fly that back to Destiny, a task she'd volunteered for, something Eli wouldn't accept, instead he'd taken the ZPM and the drive pod from her and deciding he'd do it himself.
Now they were standing there and saw Destiny drop out of FTL, so after giving Ginn a hug and ordering the marines to protect her at all cost he sat down on it, pressed the ZPM inside the slot and grabbed the controls, also taken from the jumper, what he found himself sitting on would have been a motorcycle, had it not been powered by a ZPM and propelled by alien technology.
After lifting of Eli drove of to the shield, which then slipped over him, when he was on the other side of shield he took of at full speed, much quicker than a jumper due to the lower weight, as he approached Destiny he started to transmit.
"This is Eli, please don't shoot me." He transmitted over and over again, until he got a reply.
"It's good to hear from you Eli, we'll get the hangar doors opened." Young replied after a few minutes.
"Thank you."
Hangar. Destiny. Unknown Galaxy.
"Well that's a rather odd construction." Young said after Eli got of his vehicle.
"We had to scavenge a few parts from the jumper to send that message, so we're unable to put it back in working order, this was the best thing we could do." Eli said.
"So you need another jumper to return the rest?"
"Yes, that and lots of materials."
"Materials?"
"Ah, well I kind of promised the owner of that ship that we would help him repair it."
"The owner?"
"Well he's more of a control system actually. He's the one who manages the fleet escorting Destiny, but a while back his ship was destroyed, ever since then the ships have been going on autopilot."
"Could this control system be an AI?"
"Probably, he's actually housed in one of the AI cores, so I'd say he is."
"Hm, do you remember that they said there was an Ancient general capable of controlling a large amount of ship on his own, but no one knew were he was at the moment, could this be him?"
"Well his clothes did look a little military."
"Then I think we just found the general. Take the jumper and all of our repair robots, as well as any other things you think you'll need, I'll contact the SGC and report our findings. With any luck they'll send manpower and materials for the repair of the ship, otherwise we'll have to acquire what we need on our own." Young said.
"Yes sir." Eli said before turning around, grabbing his small vehicle and running over to the jumper to store it, as well as anything else he'd need.
When he was done he climbed inside the jumper, over crates full of repair bots and the material needed by them, as well as crates with other things, after making his way to the cockpit he sat down and flew the jumper back to the derelict ship.
Derelict Ship. Unknown Galaxy.
As Eli parked the jumper the group gathered around it, when he opened the rear hatch all they saw was a large number of crates.
"Could you give me a hand in getting the crates out of the jumper?" They heard Eli shout from the front of the jumper.
"How did you get in there?" Ginn asked as she and the marines begun to unload the crates.
"This way." Eli said as he came crawling back out of the jumper, over the crates.
"I'm not even surprised. What's in the crates?"
"Repair bots, we're going to repair as much of the ship as we can with them while Young reports to Earth, it seems that the Ancient on this ship is someone we're looking for." Eli said as he opened one of the crates, took out a repair bot and let it lose on the broken jumper.
"So lets get started then." Ginn said as she too started a repair bot.
"Slow down, first we need to get that jumper working, there are a lot of crates left on Destiny that needs to get over here." Eli said.
"We'll take care of that sir." One of the team leaders said.
"Each takes one jumper each, it'll go faster to load and unload it." Eli ordered.
Following his orders one of the teams walked inside the working jumper and the other team waited as Eli and Ginn added more and more repair bots to the repairs of the jumper and as the first jumper returned the second jumper was repaired were taking of.
The following four hours the two jumpers traveled back and forth between the two ships, carrying supplies to the damaged ship as well as a few mechanics. Then four more jumpers arrived from the SGC and increased the flow of supplies and repair bots, while Destiny had a limited supply of repair bots the synthesizer was going hot as it made more of them, and from Earth came a constant flow of material. The sixth hour someone in the SGC had used his or her brain and had sent along a purple gate, so that the supplies could get shipped straight to the ship from the SGC by using a version of the Carter/McKay gate bridge macro, sending the things that went from the white gate in the SGC to Destiny's gate, then that gate forwarded the supplies to the derelict ship.
Control Interface. Derelict Ship. Unknown Galaxy.
"Hey I never got around to ask your name." Eli said to the general from his place at one of the consoles in the room.
"Ah, I'm called Cesar." The general replied.
"Caesar, as in Julius Caesar?" Eli asked slightly shocked.
"No, that would be my son, my full name would be Mars Caesar."
"Wow, I'm not god with history, but if I remember correctly a large empire called the Roman Empire was formed by a man named Julius Caesar and they worshiped a god called Mars, the God of War, I believe he also had a wife called Venus, the God of Love."
"Really? Well I doubt it's the same Julius Caesar as my son, but I have to say that the god could be based on me, I was almost reverted by my own people due to my skill in war, and my wife is indeed called Venus, the most beautiful woman to have ever lived."
"While I find this interesting I believe Daniel would be even more fascinated than me, he's an archeology specialized on the Ancient and other space races who have visited Earth."
"Visited Earth? I hope you know that Earth was our homeworld, once upon a time."
"I'm sorry, bad choice of words."
"Do not worry boy, but please ask this Daniel to come visit me on the Vindaxer."
"Is that the name of this ship?"
"Yes, it means protector."
"That much I understood. I will ask Daniel to visit you wh..." Eli begun, before he was interrupted.
"Eli, how are things going here?" Eli heard Young ask as he entered the room.
"We are making steady progress, in a few hours we'll be able to put in the ZPM and power up the ship, then we'll be able to turn life support back on and increase the rate of repairs." Eli reported, having constant updates from all around the ship flowing into his armor.
"Good, we'll be changing the gate to a white one and then we'll move on, you and your crew will have to take care of yourself while you repair the ship, of course you can always dial us when you need to."
"You're leaving sir?"
"Yes, Destiny has to continue her journey. So I'm putting you in charge of this ship and its crew."
"Of course sir. Can I request a synthesizer if you're going to leave, so that we can create what we need here?"
"It's already on the way, I'd never leave you without the necessary supplies, a stronger subspace transmitter is also on the way, the general apparently wants to be able to send messages back to the other Ancients, among other things."
"Thank you, it'll be good to be able to call the SGC without dialing the gate. His name is Caesar by the way, Mars Caesar."
"Noted, I'll remember that. It's good talking to you and the rest of the crew of this ship, but I think I have to get back to Destiny now and prepare the replacement crew, you are after all taking away a rather large part of the crew, so I've got to get the new ones up to speed."
"We'll get back as soon as the ship is fully functioning again."
"Take care." Young said as he turned around and left the room, heading for the gate and Destiny.
"What did he say?" Mars asked.
"He asked about the status of the repairs and I told him that we'll soon be able to put in the ZPM and increase the speed of the repairs, then he said that Destiny would be resuming its journey and we'll be given a white gate, a stronger subspace transmitter and a synthesizer to help us."
"A synthesizer?"
"A device that can create almost anything out of energy."
"Ah, that could be useful."
"Yes, now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to this." Eli said as he turned his attention back to the console.
"One more thing, could you please create a translation for me so I can follow your conversations in real-time?"
"Of course, I believe Daniel can bring a language crystal with him from Atlantis when he comes."
"Ah, should have guessed you'd have that old city as one of your bases." The general said before disappearing, leaving Eli to his work.
THE END
Looks like that's the end this Episode, only two more to go before we're at the end of season one, which means that we're almost halfway through the story, that feels kinda good, at least for me.
Don't expect any more Episodes before the end of the next week, this is posted during the 24 hours that I'll be at home this week, so I can't write the next one until next week.
Here's the link to my latest story: s/9699042/1/Daniels-Adventure-Champion-of-the-Tric kster
It's a Stargate/Star Wars crossover, I hope you like it.