Ch 2: How to B&E a Star Destroyer... FOR DUMMIES!
Maj. Carter: Life-support systems?
Col. O'Neill: Check.
Maj. Carter: Communications?
Col. O'Neill: Check.
Maj. Carter: Inertial dampeners?
Col. O'Neill: Cool! ...and check. Phasers?
Maj. Carter: Sorry, sir.
6.1 - Redempton
"The damage doesn't look so bad from here..." Daniel Jackson looked out the forward windows of the Prometheus's bridge at the battered, bruised, and fairly well mugged Star Destroyer. The rest of SG-1 looked at him accusingly, daring him to make up for having just taunted fate. "Well... err, it can't be fully armed and operational, now can it?"
While Jack absolutely loved the assistance that Daniel normally provided, this was that once a month time when he just wanted to strangle the archeologist for his normal tempting of fate. He nearly began spluttering, before taking a deep breath, and turning to Carter. "So, we're here, now what?"
"Well, according to the scans, the shp does still have an atmosphere, approximately standard room temperature comparable to the Prometheus. It's loosing it, though, through the obvious rents, gashes, and buckles in the general hull." Carter stepped forward from the sensor console on the port side, looking out across the scarred ship before them.
"I can see that. Carter, can we just transporter zippidy-do-da over there?" Jack had to cut Carter off before she broke fully into scientific rambling mode. All he needed to know is what it was, what he had to do, and the general idea of how to do it.
"Well... maybe, sir." Carter spoke hesitantly, as she looked over at the console readouts again. "The hull has some kind of alloy in it that may prevent beaming over, sir."
"Now was that so hard, Carter?" Jack put a face of mock sympathy on his face as he put his hat on his heart. Then he slipped on his faithful SGC recon-baseball hat. "So, space-walking is the name of the game, today?"
"Yes, sir."
"Daniel, record this moment in history, I have just bested our resident Astro-whosits. I obviously intend to never let her live this down." Jack turned from his triumphant self-notation back to Carter, who still looked smug. "Yes, Carter?"
"So, if you've decided to spacewalk, how are you going to get over there, sir?" Carter crossed her arms, waiting for the inevitable...
"D'oh!"
"That's why we're still using the transporters, sir. Partially because I don't feel like glaring down any Lt. who wants to start humming the part where the Tantive IV is captured, and partially because we have no idea whether or not the ship is stable." Carter glanced over at a nervous group who had already been chewed out once for annoying the bridge compartment by choir humming the Imperial March.
"The SGC has never quite been what could be described as stable." Daniel glanced over to Jack and Carter as he spoke, a shrug of his shoulders showing part of his mixed feelings on the matter.
"Define stable!" Jack snapped slightly back at Daniel, his temper slowly unravelling from the madness that was his life that year.
"Indeed."
"Teal'c..."
/Triton Orbit, SD 1701 Hull/
"Err... energizing."
The flash of the Asgard transporters would have blinded momentarily anyone who might have seen it, provided they had a suit on. After all, without a suit, their eyeballs would get sucked out of their heads and explode in the near-vacuum of space.
"Jack, did we just get a Starfleet transporter sendoff?" Daniel looked around, at the other members of SG-1, unsure of who exactly had been the one to say 'Energize'.
"It's not energize, it's a multi-dimensional controlled-" Carter shook her head, stopping before she got carried away, still a habit she had, even with Col. O'Neill doing his craziest to break her of it.
"Carter, I say we call it energize. If nothing else than to just work out a few headaches. Now where is that hatch you had located?" Jack playfully lectured, getting back into his rhythm as he looked around for the hatch that had been promised, the bulky SGC EVA suit hampering his movements slightly.
"O'Neill, did MajorCarter not forewarn you that we would be transporting directly onto the hatch?" Teal'c bent over, investigating the pitted and slightly tarnished hull of their section for an access hatch.
"Wait, you mean-" Jack looked around, as Daniel brushed at lettering on the hull, beginning to interpret it from the quick memorization of Teal'cs... reference books.
"I've got a sign saying Cargo Lift 20." Daniel got back up, starting to walk across the hatch looking for anything to help out.
"If we can find a interphase jack, I've got a direct uplink transmitter to the Prometheus that we should be able to fit in with a jury-rigging to get manual control over this lift." Carter stepped slowly across the hull, the dim light of the outer solar system making it hard to read anything. "Major Carter to Prometheus."
"This is Prometheus, go ahead."
"Would it be possible to have a spotlight on the area? It's pretty dark out here, and it's hard to make out changes in the hull." Carter looked up to the BC-303 hanging a little over 200 yards overhead, which had matched the Star Destroyer's slow tumble.
"Confirmed Major, spotlights are being activated now." The landing spotlights of the Prometheus flashed on, bathing the hull in brilliant white light, and throwing everything into contrast.
"Aww, dangit, Carter, I was enjoying the view." Jack's cheerful complaint got Daniel and Carter to look at him. "What? It's not every day that you get to walk around outside, enjoy the fresh air of Triton, and it's lovely view. Look around, look at all the stars you can see out here, and Neptune! That blue puts Carribean beach surf blue to shame!"
Carter smiled, seeing that her CO was at least enjoying the unexpected side-distractions of the event. "Yes, sir."
"Anybody bring a camera? I'd like to get a few pictures of SG-1's first Grand Theft Star Destroyer!" Jack waved his arms in the zero-g, gesturing to indicate the little over a mile long super-warship that they were standing on.
"Hey, Carter, I think I found something." Daniel was hunched over, 10 feet away. One hand was tracing along a line of text on the hull. "Droid access panel. Would this do for you?"
"On one hand, I'm impressed. On the other hand, I am scared, nightlight scared that Daniel has learned a whole new written language in less than 5 hours.", Jack quipped as he looked at the panel recessed into the hull.
"It's not that hard, Jack. Think of it... like internet lingo. LOL and all that. You just need to know the contex, and all will be clear." Daniel stepped back as Carter dropped down and started pressing at the panel, looking for an open button.
"No mystical mumbo-jumbo. I thought the ancients de-asending you taught you that lesson." Jack watched Carter work, as she pulled her space-modified crowbar out to try and pry the panel open. "And where did you learn L33t speak from?"
"I took my first step into a larger world, Jack." Daniel smugly looked at the now blinking zing'd O'neill. Carter just kept tugging at her crowbar, before pulling it out, looking from between it and the panel. In anyone else, that wouldn't have been too much of a worry. With Samantha Carter, it was a problem for even Tim Taylor.
"Teal'c, why have you corrupted him with Star Wars sayings?"
"O'Neill, I find your lack of faith disturbing." Teal'c smiled as well as Jack began spluttering. He had mastered, as Jack would say, the art of Zing. "MajorCarter, do you reqiure assistance?"
Jack looked over to her, seeing the crowbar in hand. "Have you been beaten already so thuroughly that you have resorted to the brute force attack, Carter?"
"Negative, sir. I'd hardly call this a brute force attack. Just proper application of leverage, sir." Carter had repositioned, as she analyzed the hatch, determining that she might have more luck on the other side.
Jacks eyebrows raised as he considered what she had said. "Pray tell us what you would consider brute force, then?"
"A 3 caliber HEAT round fired at .5c from the Prometheus's main guns with the new trinium penetrator using the naquada/potassium mix." Carter pulled at her crowbar again, feeling the hatch give way slightly. The sensors of the hatch noticed the manual opening, and began retracting it the rest of the way to prevent damage to the hatch motors, and to allow what it presumed to be a stranded droid access.
"Carter's mind suddenly scares me more than this ship." Daniel backed away from her slightly, now wondering if Jack was rubbing off on her in the way of his... sometimes pyromaniacal tendancies. The whoosh of escaping air had stopped finally as the hatch finished opening up, a meter-square patch of hull opening into blackness.
"That's my Major."
"Indeed, O'Neill. MajorCarter has proven to be a most impressive warrior when properly motivated."
"You see, sir, science really is good for something!" Carter jumped down into the hole suddenly, causing everyone's heart levels to race, before her head popped back up. "It's only a 5 foot drop to the floor of this. There's a bunch of access corridors, that's why there was such an outgassing."
'I knew that. Didn't I, Daniel."
Eye-roll. "Yes, Jack. Let's all get in there, so we can get captured for the thirtieth time, with added flavor from stormtroopers!"
"My snark-o-meter rates that one a 5, for effort. Let's go."
After they had all crowded in, Carter hit a green button up by the interior part of the hatch, which cranked itself shut. A small bar below it began filling up, and at halfway, the hiss of air made itself known.
"Ah, the recompress button. How did you know Carter?" Jack turned around slowly, taking in the gloomy, barely lit and hyper-cramped corridors.
"It was green. Considering that in the movies, red was bad, and green was good, save for in space battles, it was a safe bet, sir." Carter reached up and removed her helmet after checking the air composition. "The air is fine as well, standard atmospheric mix."
"Righty, campers, helmets off, Carter, are we still in comms with Prometheus?" Jack reached up, and tugged his helmet off, breathing in the metallic air that had been pumped in.
"This is Prometheus, Col. We still read you loud and clear."
Jack raised his eyebrows, surprised the Prometheus was responding before getting called. "Do you have a mic on one of us?"
"Yes, Col, and you said a naughty thing earlier, but we'll edit that out of the log for you."
"Rodger that. As soon as we get to a further interior section, we'll be dropping off these suits for pickup, and we'll need our standard gear beamed over, O'neill out." Jack shook his head, surprised they had picked up his annoyed grumble earlier,
"So, which way, Jack?" Daniel looked around at three diffrent paths to choose from, wondering which way led out.
"Straight ahead, Danny-boy. Straight to the heart of the problem." Jack pointed towards the middle path, perpindicular to the crawlway that led across the hatch.
"As good as any, sir." Carter hung her crowbar back into place on her suit, the magnetic lock on it latching it on for her. She started forward, the magnetic boots clanging even as she turned them off, ducking into the gloom.
"Boys, the lady has led, follow forth." Jack stepped into the semi-darkness after Carter, blinking in the dim light of the emergancy illumination strips.
Dark metal lined everything, a easy-access grating underfoot, red lights everywhere in a metal web of components lining the walls. Far scarier than a goa'uld Ha'tak. Those were too cheezy to be scary. This... this was something that was for show only in one way, that of ripping you to shreds. Jack O'neill wasn't prone to being scared, but this had him uneased in a whole new way.
/Deep in the Heart of the SD, 3 hours later/
At least it had been fairly easy so far. Other than the getting lost in the dark creepy maintence tunnels part. That had been a long, two-hour process of creepy and monotonous trek, until they had burst blinking and surprised into a brightly lit grey-white corridor. They all had breathed a sigh of relief, and taken off the rest of their suits. Thankfully, they had still been close enough to the hull to have them beamed out, and their weapons and gear beamed in.
Was good for cheering them up. But, if there were suvivors... oooh, boy they were going to have some problems. The next hour past by with much walking, and little sign of anyone. Once, 45 minutes after clearing the tunnels, they had seen an abandoned tool kit, left out and scattered in the middle of repairing some kind of piping. No sign of whoever was using it.
Nothing at all, not even a droid.
Even Prometheus had detected no activities on any detectable comm channel. No signs anything was coming online from repairs. Silence... and yet...
"Anyone feel something... odd?" Carter looked around, turning slowly around, P90 at the low ready. The featureless greyish walls held no change, save for the occasional doors they had checked out, leading to empty rooms, some showing signs of having someone living in them, others cargo bays. Her voice was quiet, a tactical whisper.
"An unease, and sense of growing wishes to have us leave, MajorCarter?" Teal'c looked around, his staff weapon primed and gripped at the ready. He felt the same sensations, as he looked down the seemingly endless corridor.
Unlike the Goa'uld, the Star Destroyer was laid out utilitarianly, decorated not at all, built as a ship of war. A ship not built to be a statement of richess, and godliness, but of intimidation by sheer power, built to withstand horrors and live, built to destroy worlds and destroy everything in it's path. Teal'c appreciated that, even if the reasons why were for the same as the Goa'uld. Intimidation, domination, semi-worship of a false god. That he did not like at all.
"A feeling of haunting, of malice and evil intentions, more than standard issue?" Daniel looked side to side, in the middle of the group, a zat in each hand ready to fire.
"I know what you mean..." Jack looked ahead, his P90 ready and cocked, his senses all tingling a dangerously familiar feeling. "It's that sort of feeling that-" The whine of several dozen energy weapons powering up right behind him turned his heart to ice. The cold feel of a barrel rammed into his neck, and he slowly raised up his hands, taking his fingers away from the trigger. "We were being stalked."
He turned around, with the rest of SG-1, to see the corridor lined bulkhead to bulkhead with ominous white and black figures, blasters all pointed at the unlucky team.
"Rebel scum."
"Col. O'Neill? Major Carter? Dr. Jackson? Teal'c? Anybody, was that what I thought we just heard? Anybody?"
TBC