Ori's Revenge
Walter raced into General Landry's office, looking slightly excited. Hank sitting behind his finely polished desk looked up at his Chief Master Sergeant with an expectant look. "Yes Walter? You have news I hope?"
"Yes sir, General Caldwell has returned with the Daedalus, Fraiser and Britannia from the three forty's trials sir he's ready to be......"
The familiar smell of ozone filled the room as Caldwell appeared standing at the door. "General Landry, everything went well, all systems are better than expected and both ships are ready for duty."
"Walter you're dismissed, Steven take a seat please."
"Yes sir, ah sirs, would you like any coffee or something?" Walter delayed hoping to hear something, anything to relieve his routine.
"No Walter, you can go." Hank then indicted again for Caldwell to sit, which he did rather apprehensively, Walter ducked out, but he was never far away.
"Now, first things first. You're a staff officer now, so forget the titles Steven, I know it takes some getting used to, but that star your wearing has it's entitlements." He smiled ever so briefly.
"Ah yes Ge...Hank. It is a bit of a change. When General O'Neill, ah Jack put me in command of fleet procurement and testing I said great, a nice peaceful path to my retirement. It didn't quite work out that way though."
"Retirement is overrated anyway." Hank said with a wry smile on his face. "Now, how would you like to lead your new ships on a mission Steven?" Landry stood and moved to the side of his desk, Caldwell took this as a queue that the brief chat was about to end, so he pushed his chair back and raised his lanky frame. Hank continued on.
"We have a problem with Admiral MacGregor's mission, it seems there is trouble. He may be hurt or worse, I'm not sure. But be prepared for his evacuation back to the SGC. Captain Connolly is out there as well, so if the mission is not complete by the time you get there, I want you to make sure it happens."
"Yes Gen..Hank, was there anything else?" Steven raised his hand to his coms, and paused.
"No, that will be all, and good luck. Oh I almost forgot, you have six new crew members boarding with you, they're waiting in the embarkation room."
"Thanks I'll be needing them. And I hope I don't have to call on the luck." He smiled and clicked the ear piece. "Daedalus, ready, plus six in the gate room."
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MacGregor called for calm as a clamour of voices assaulted his head. "For Christ's sake, one at a time people." He shouted to be heard. The pain in his side gave him a sharp jab as he spoke.
"Sir we've done a head count, we have two hundred and fifty six here, not including our own, that makes three hundred and eight total." Cam told him as he looked around the milling crowd in the second hangar bay of the Ori ship. There was a growing impatience, they were tired, hungry and freed now of their masters, had gained a small modicum of independent thought. Sam Carter saw it and knew what may come of it if action did not come swiftly. She stood nearer to her uncle and whispered in his ear.
"If we don't do something soon Uncle Will, we'll have a riot on our hands, we can't just sit here and wait for it. Plus we need to either abandon one of these ships or take both. Either way we should be thinking about the Victory's mission."
"Agreed Sam." He said softly. Motioning Cam and Petr Szbeski to his side. "Do one last sweep of the ship, then start organising a transfer of all personnel over to the other ship, at worst if we get this heap of crap going it will only need two or three of us. I don't want to be looking over my shoulder every five minutes while we're learning the finer points of it." Casting a glance over the assembly, Mac could see a number of faces he would never put much trust in. He had a feeling that there was more going here and he didn't want that uncertainty creeping up on him and sticking a knife in him...again. "Daniel, Vala with me. Teal'c take a team and check the after crew spaces. Sam I want you to lead the 401's transporting over to Connolly, when you get there give her any assistance she needs." She gave him a firm nod and grabbing the nearest air crewman, began mustering others to join her.
Teal'c conceded a slight bow to Will. "As you wish Admiral." He said, then chose a team of four. They checked their weapons and were not far behind the other teams. There would be very little of the ship that did not get a pass by one of the Tauri teams.
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Jennifer was under the main console of the bridge, she'd been laying on her back now for thirty minutes and Connolly was growing impatient, they had at last managed to shut the ring transporter down, even after it had restarted of it's own accord, four times. Whether it was by luck, or it had simply finished doing it's job, they wouldn't know until they got some sensor readings of the shaft. She then began plugging into the control bio sensor, so they hopefully would be able to fly the ship. Yes the Ori had made the vessel human friendly, without the need of a Prior to make the inputs, but they had also installed biometric sensors, key to certain personnel who were now most likely dead.
"Take your time Captain." Sarah said with a turn of sarcasm. "It's not like we're on a clock or anything." She heard a loud thud, which was Hailey bumping her head for the umpteenth time.
"Shit...sorry ma'am, done we should have control now, well hopefully." She slid out and stood at her full height, which wasn't much standing next to the older woman. "Now I'll just try some rudimentary functions first."
A double click on Sarah's comlink gave her pause. Hailey held her hand, shaking just slightly above the control and waited for her commander's word. Sarah held her own hand up to signal the younger woman to wait, "Damn this is getting old." She thought to herself. "Connolly here."
"Ma'am, it's Hampton. The transporter has stopped." The marine told her without much ado.
"We know that Captain, anything else?" Sarah was feeling uneasy about this whole affair, she longed to be doing something, anything other than this.
Carl replied nervously. "Er yes Captain, ah ma'am there is a ring transporter at the bottom. It's about twenty three miles down through the ice, we dropped a atmo surveyor drone down, minus two degrees C, but there is a breathable space there. The readings indicate a huge area ahead of the drone's position...ma'am."
"Right Captain, hold for the moment, we'll be there shortly." Sarah reached over and grabbed her side arm from the commander's chair where she had left it and turned to Hailey. "Before you do anything Jennifer, see if you can raise the Admiral or somebody on the other ship. Appraise them of our status, I'm going to see what Hampton is up to..and don't touch anything ok." She headed down the long passageway and heard a faint "Yes ma'am." as her long legs took her quickly toward the nearest transporter.
Jennifer jumped up into the command chair and hefted her pack onto her lap. She reached into it and grabbed the radio pack, that would allow her to link into the Tornado's communication array. After a few moments of static, she was able to get a connection and called, she adjusted her earpiece and settled back as she waited for a response.
"Daniel Jackson here, Jen is that you?"
"Yes Daniel, could you relay to the Admiral please, I've bypassed the system control and we're about to do a test." She then told him about Captain Hampton's discovery and that the marines had managed to put all the bodies into a Ori shuttle ready for launching.
"Ok Jen I'll tell him. Oh by the way, we're sending everyone from this ship over to you, Sam should be docking now with the five Tornado's....um Daniel out."
Jennifer had to giggle at, all these years with SG1 and Doctor Jackson still had difficulty with the simplest procedures. As she settled in to wait, her right hand rested on the arm of the chair, she felt the bio pad under her fingers, then received the shock of her life when the chair activated and systems came online. But then she had to clasp her hands over her head as a blaring alarm filled her brain, threatening to explode within. In what she believed was the Ori dialect of the Ancient language, an automated voice activated, and she didn't have to guess too much what it was. A count down, somehow an auto destruct was activated. She bounded out of the chair and scanned the main control panel, her tablet was still connected and it gave her a rapid readout. "Oh shit!" She exclaimed. "Eleven minutes.........."
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Sam enjoyed flying the Tornado, it reminded her of being on the Hammond. But as much as she loved being in command of a large ship and crew, after a while the responsibilities got to her, this was more personal. She was musing over that fact as her and the crew disembarked, only to be greeted by the blaring sound of the ships alarm and an ominous voice, obviously in the Ori dialect, announcing the ships imminent destruction. Already refugees were screaming in panic, the few soldiers were outnumbered, but the absolute fear written on the hapless faces made it easier for them to control. Sam clicked her coms twice. "Jennifer, Carter on board. What the hell is going on."
"I don't know Colonel, somehow this damned ship was automatically rigged to self destruct the moment we tried to activate anything important, I'm trying to work around it ma'am." There was intense panic in the younger woman's voice.
"Christ..."Sam exploded. "I'm here with most of the refugees......any suggestions?" She began giving orders at the same time for the SF's to gather the people back into the 401's.
"At best ma'am get them all to the ring room. We may have an out there. I'll keep working."
Sam gave the instructions to the nearest sergeant to her, in ordered but crying and wailing lines, the SF's herded the refugees out of the hangar. "I'll be there with you Jen, hang on." Sam said abruptly and ran as fast as she could for the nearest transporter, she had to guess where the bridge might be, but as it was quite similar to the same devices on Atlantis, within a few moments, she exited the sliding door and found herself only metres away from her destination. She was at Hailey's side in a few quick strides. She found the young woman, on her back, beneath the main control panel.
"Jen, I'm here what have we got?"
In Ori the voice continued. "Five minutes to self destruct, please make your way to the nearest shuttle, Hallowed are the Ori."
"Oh shit, Colonel I've done everything I could, short of pulling every flaming crystal out."
Sam felt a wall of panic inside, she had been in this situation before, and it didn't end well. She remembered, the cold and wet. But she knew this wouldn't be an ending like that one. "Damn it Jen, just pull the bloody lot out." She yelled, sweat poured down her face. But she knew only too well how the young Captain felt as well. She glanced down involuntarily to see the wet stain in Jennifer's crotch.
"Two minutes to self destruct, please make your way to the nearest shuttle, Hallowed are the Ori."