Two

A Blast from the Past

'You know, if you move out of the way, I can try blasting it, see if that will open it.' Lilion leans against the door and watches as Torr tries to prise open one of the panels next to the it.

'That didn't work out so well for us last time you used your blast gun. We don't know what, or who's behind this door.'

'Just saying, it'd be quicker to blast it.'

Torr sighs and straightens up from his task, Lilion is right but he can't bring himself to let her fire away at what he hopes is a ship of the Ancients. He leans against the door next to her, wondering what they can do when a soft whirring sound can be heard behind them. Before either can catch their balance the door slides open and deposits them on the floor in a heap.

'Ouch! Get off me!' Lilion shoves Torr off her as they scramble to their feet and look around. They are in a long corridor, lit intermittently with the dim glow of emergency lighting, stretching off in both directions.

'Did our weight open it?' Torr asks, running a hand over the open door frame, looking for an external control panel.

'Does it matter? It opened, come on! Leave that alone, let's see if we can find the navigation bridge!'

'Wait! Which way?' Torr stares in both directions, uncertain which way to go but Lilion is already heading up the corridor, trying each door she passes.

Deep in the heart of Destiny, in her core processors, a new programme is running. It is not an Ancient code but a Wraith code for a holographic bioscan. As it poses no threat, the ship allows it to work it's way through her systems. Todd can't believe his luck, not only has he been rescued from the hive ship, he is now in embedded in a ship of such sophistication it can only be one of the Ancients fleet. He had heard rumours about a ship called Destiny but never in a million years believed he would one day be travelling on it, even if it was only as a computer programme. He can hear voices, the voices of the Wraith descendant and the Human who were on the dart. They needed the door open so he trips the door programme. He quickly locates them and sets about opening the doors, one by one in sequence, leading them towards the navigation bridge.

'Wait! Lili! Who's opening these doors?' Torr stumbles behind Lilion as she follows the path of open doors that Todd is leaving for them. 'We don't know the layout of the ship, we could be heading anywhere... it could be a trap!'

Lilion pauses, waiting for Torr to catch up.

'Even if it is a trap, we have no choice. This ship is deserted. We have no food or water with us and we are probably already out of the Pegasus galaxy, with no way back. See how many corners we have turned already?' Lilion points back down the corridor, ' More than enough places to have set an ambush. We were trapped in that viewing deck, why let us out of a sealed room if it is only to catch us again?'

Torr finds he cannot argue with her logic and smiles. 'At least stop rushing so quickly to get there! I can't keep up!'

'That's what you get for spending your days pouring over old scrolls instead of out in the real world. Do you good to get some exercise.' With that, Lilion sets off again at fast jog down the corridor, her hand lightly resting on her blast gun at her side. Behind her she can hear Torr groan and start jogging to catch up with her.

Around the next corner they find a room with a table and chairs and some kind of strange device with a set of small polished stones. As Torr enters the room, he is just in time to see Lilion reach out and touch one of them before he can warn her not to.

The holographic projector protocol runs the length and breadth of the ship, all Todd has to do is upload himself into the software and he can project himself to any part of the ship. He checks on the progress of the two passengers and notices they have stopped in an ante room leading to the bridge. He would take the opportunity to introduce himself to them in person. Todd materialises in front of the Torr and Lilion just as Lilion sits in one of the chairs and touches the ancient artefact.

For a moment Lilion feels as though she is travelling at great speed, being transported across a vast distance and then she is engulfed by a deep dreamless sleep.

'Lilion! Stop!' But Torr is too late. For a moment Lili slumps back in her seat as she holds the stone and then she shakes herself, as though waking up and looks around, leaping to her feet.

In that instant Torr is suddenly aware of another presence, one he recognises from before and turns to find the hologram of Todd standing nearby. Before he can say anything Lilion pulls her blast gun level and fires directly at the ancestral Wraith. The blast travels through the image without damaging it and starts to scour a deep burn on the wall opposite.

'Please tell this human to stop firing at me! This is the second time she has done so!' Todd glowers at Lilion.

'Lili! Please! It's a hologram, you can't kill him! Please stop shooting at everything, you'll damage the ship!' Torr reaches for Lilion's bast gun but instead finds the gun levelled at him instead.

'Back off! Wraith.. who are you? Who is this Todd?' The voice is Lilion's but he manner and attitude is a stranger to Torr, he steps back and raises his hands, completely nonplussed by the situation.

'How do you know my name, human?' Todd is surprised to find her call him by his name.

'What do you mean, how do I know your name, I read the reports, I've seen your picture. Who is this, he looks like a descendant of Michael's...'

The reference to both Todd and Michael, the most well known of the Ancestral Wraiths causes Torr to interrupt.

'You're Todd? I am a descendant of yours, my name is Torr, I'm an archaeologist... we found your hive ship, on New Lantea, we are searching for the lost city of Atlantis...'

'A descendent of mine? How many generations. I see you have no feeding hand?'

'Well, no, of course not... the hunger was cured with gene therapy about a thousand years after you...you...' Torr trails off, unsure how to break the news.

'I have been dead for a thousand years?'

'Well, more like two thousand years... the hive ship must have uploaded you onto the dart and then... I'm not sure how you are here now but...'

'Quiet the pair of you! You are telling me that this isn't Todd? And who else is with you?'

'No, he's a hologram, a bioscan projection...It's a modification that hive ships had in order to transfer a Wraith leader to a different body in a catastrophic event...'

'Yes, yes he's quite right, I am a bioscan of Todd and I've uploaded myself into the systems here on Destiny.'

'There's no one else, just us..' Torr points at her. 'Just you and me.. Lilion?' Wondering if Lilion is suffering from some kind of memory loss. 'You can lower your gun now.'

Lilion turns and glances at her reflection in a nearby glass panel and laughs.

'You have used the communication stones! I am not Lilion. My name is Colonel David Telford of the United States Airforce and this is now my ship! Move!' Telford waves the gun towards the door and marches Torr into the navigation bridge. 'Don't worry your companion is safe, back on Earth in deep sleep hibernation in my body with the rest of the Atlantis crew at Stargate Command. Over two thousand years... Destiny must be nearly home now!'

'Home?' Torr asks, trying to piece together what Telford is saying.

'He means Earth. Destiny is the last of the great ships of the Ancients, a ship sent out to map the Universe, it has been travelling for millennia on it's journey.' Todd follows Telford/Lilion and Torr into the bridge room. 'It must have stopped in the Pegasus galaxy because of Atlantis. Perhaps had the coordinates preprogrammed... I shall have to run through her data banks and find out...'

'We must have beamed on board with the Wraith ray just as the ship dropped out of FTL travel! This is extraordinary... what are you doing?' Torr tries to struggle out of Telford/Lilion's strong grasp.

'Securing my prisoner.' Telford/Lilion ties Torr to a nearby console.

'Why am I your prisoner?'

'You're a Wraith! I read the reports from Atlantis, the battles, the infighting. I know what you are all capable of.'

'What reports? We have no contact with this...Earth you are from! The Pegasus galaxy has no more battles. For a thousand years we have been at peace and we are certainly no threat to your home planet... what is he talking about Todd and where is Atlantis?'

'Well, last I remember, a very nasty piece of work called Michael, who was a Wraith, was trying to destroy their planet... but, that would have been a long time ago.. Atlantis returned to Earth to stop the attack and I... my body perished in the battle on New Lantea.'

'You're an Ancient from Atlantis? But how?' Torr asks Telford/Lilion but Todd interrupts.

'No, He's not an Ancient! He is a human descendant from Earth, some of them have the Ancient gene though and so can utilise Ancient technology, like this ship. Do you have the gene? Can you control this ship?' Todd moves up close to Telford/Lilion and stares into his eyes.

'He hasn't got the gene, I can tell. So, this ship is not yours it is, in fact... mine!' Todd accesses an electrical subsystem and routes an electric charge through the console Telford/Lilion is holding and knocks her out. Stunned, she falls to the floor, dropping the blast gun.

'Lilion!' But there is nothing Torr can do, his hands are tied. A few moments later Lilion starts to come round.

'Ow! My head... what happened?'

'You were electrocuted by the hologram programme of the ancestral Wraith, Todd. He's loaded himself up into the ship's systems.'

'What?!'

'It's a long story.'

'Where are we and why are you tied to that console, what's going on?' Lilion picks herself up from the floor and starts to untie Torr, he instinctively flinches, not sure whether she is Lilion or Telford.

'What? What's the matter?'

'You don't remember?'

'Well, one minute I was about to touch those weird stones and the next I'm in here.'

'They're Ancient technology, communication stones he called them. You swapped consciousness with someone on a planet called Earth, a Colonel Telford. He wanted the ship but you need some kind of gene from the Ancients to...'

'OK... stop! That is all way too much information. So, can that Wraith... Todd control the ship?'

'No, you have to have a special gene, from the Ancients.'

'So we can't control the ship?'

'I don't think so.'

'So we are stuck here?'

'Yes. This ship is going back to Earth.'

'And this Colonel Telford did he have the gene?'

'No.' Torr rubs his wrists and sighs. 'But, wherever your consciousness went, it's where the rest of the crew of Atlantis is. You really can't remember anything?'

'No. Sorry. Where's Todd?'

'I don't know, must have switched himself off. Probably didn't want you to blast him again.'

'Again?'

'Yes... again!'

As Torr and Lilion discuss the events triggered from using the communication stones, Destiny continues on her way, drawing nearer to her destination, Earth with each minute, slipping through the universe at faster than Light speed.