Ace In The Hole
Chapter 21
"Good morning Colonel... so glad you could join us" Mr Woolsey says with a rise of his eyebrows, Sheppard glances at his watch noticing it is 08:12 and shrugs his shoulders by way of a weak apology.
"Sorry... kinda lost track of the time... weird night" Sheppard quickly takes a seat between Teyla and Ronon before nodding to both Larin and Dr Cairns who are sitting either side of Mr Woolsey.
"Everything OK John?" Teyla whispers leaning over to him casually as Mr Woolsey and the others pay them little attention.
"Never better... just like I said it was a weird night...I'll tell you sometime... I promise" Teyla smiles sweetly and relaxes waiting for Mr Woolsey to begin the briefing.
"Well we are just waiting on..."
"Sorry... few days off and I swear things go crazy without me" Rodney slumps into his chair dropping his laptop on the desk in front of him.
"Well now that we are all here I guess its straight down to business... Dr Cairns... if you please" Mr Woolsey indicates for the young scientist beside him to begin.
"Erm... OK... firstly I have to apologise for Dr Chen-Lu's absence he has decided to continue with his work so he can get the drone interface up and running as quickly as possible... but he has given me a quick run through on the progress he has made so far so that I could keep all of you in the loop" Cairns says with a smile.
"The 304's aren't going anywhere without shields Doc" Sheppard says with a sigh.
"No Sir... they're not... but there are still eight more 304's operating in the Milky Way that could make use of the drones we have... his wife is back in Beijing...I think that Earth's protection is also on Dr Chen-Lu's mind... Sir" Cairn's says with honest sincerity.
"Point made" Sheppard grins
"How has he bypassed the Ancient gene lock out code... I tried rewriting the damn thing like a dozen times" Rodney huffs, but he quickly notices Cairn's blush "What?"
"He didn't rewrite it... he simply deleted it" Rodney stares at the younger scientist open mouthed and silent for a moment "Chen-Lu said that you are starting to think like an Asgard Rodney" Rodney sits mouth opening and closing slowly with his brow creasing slightly in confusion "I think he means that because you are so used to having to figure out the complex solutions... that you sometime over think the problem"
Shepard, Ronon and Teyla all grin at Rodney.
"I think he means your no longer capable of thinking dumb enough Dr McKaye" Mr Woolsey adds with a grin.
"Then I will take that as a complement... about time some of you baboons saw me for the greatness I truly am" Rodney says puffing up his chest, Sheppard and Teyla start laughing lightly much too his annoyance.
The door opens and Jennifer walks in taking the last remaining seat next to Rodney offering him a quick smile.
"Sorry I had to see to one of the Asgard... his vitals dropped dangerously low" She says to the assembled group.
"Is he OK now? Mr Woolsey asks.
"For the moment... but I would like too make this as quick as possible... with Carson off world, I would rather stay in the infirmary just in case anything happens"
"OK... just tell us what you have learned" he adds sympathetically.
"Two of the Asgard appear to be in some sort of induced coma... all tests have shown they have no injuries or medical problems that we can see"
"Are they just blank clones?" Rodney asks his wife with a smile.
"No... we are detecting brain waves they're just dormant"
"What about the third Asgard... he was defiantly injured when we found him" Sheppard says.
"He has multiple broken bones... and both internal and external injuries including burns and cuts" she says with a sigh "The Wraith can not feed on the Asgard so I am guessing they resorted to good old fashioned torture"
"Do you think he will recover?... we desperately need to speak with him?" Mr Woolsey says in concern.
"For the moment I don't even know if he is gonna make it through one more day" Jennifer sighs.
"We need him alive doctor... we need answers" Woolsey says removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose wearily.
"Then I will get back to my patient and ensure you get your chance to speak with him" Jennifer stands smiles to the group and leaves as swiftly as she arrived.
"He dies before we get some answers and we are screwed" Sheppard sighs.
"She'll save him" Rodney grins whilst glancing at Dr Cairns laptop that has been pushed in front of him.
"How can you be so sure Rodney?" Teyla inquires
"She's a McKaye... succeeding is what we do" Rodney smirks as the rest of the people roll their eyes.
"You're kidding me?" Rodney turns to look at Dr Cairns in shock.
"Doctor?" Mr Woolsey once again indicates for the younger scientist to continue his briefing.
"Sorry sir... as I was just showing Dr McKaye that I have recently discovered that the weapon that the Wraith are using to neutralise our shields is Lantean by design"
"Why would the Ancestors develop such a weapon when the Wraith do not use shield technology?" Teyla asks.
"It seems that in the early stages of the war the Wraith hives had shields... this weapon was created on one of the Lantean's research outposts"
"Wait let me guess... the Wraith captured the outpost" Sheppard sighs.
"Yes... The outpost fell in the early stages of the war but by then the Wraith had already increased the effectiveness of their ships armour... to compensate the Lantean's began putting ZPM's on all of their ships"
"Eventually the Wraith disable one of the Ancients ships... get hold of a ZPM and boom population explosion... bye bye Ancients" Rodney sums up neatly.
"So why have we never encountered this shield disrupter technology before?" Sheppard asks looking slightly confused.
"I'm guessing the Wraith only managed to get their hands on a few of the prototypes when they captured the outpost" Cairns answers looking to Rodney for agreement.
"So the Asgard may not have been involved after all" Mr Woolsey states.
"No... they are defiantly involved some how... the hyperspace jamming technology is a direct rip off of the Attero device" Rodney states with conviction.
"I'm guessing the Asgard have either manufactured new copies of these weapons or they have repaired the one that they had originally discovered in the outpost" Cairns adds "Whether it be by force or free will the Asgard are defiantly involved some how"
"So... How do we defend against this weapon then doc" Sheppard asks, Dr Cairns sighs and momentarally drops his eyes to the desk before looking up in resolute determination.
"I can see two options... option one we completely over haul each 304's power distribution grid and shield array"
"Can't we just plug a ZPM in... McKaye's done it before" Ronon asks startling everyone by the fact he's paying attention.
"Erm... no... cant do that this time" McKaye sighs.
"Why not?" Sheppard asks.
"In the past connecting a ZPM has not been a problem because the capacitor has acted like a buffer between the ZPM and the shield emitters" Rodney explains "A 304's shield emitters are no where near capable of handling that much raw power without the capacitor buffering the charge"
"The city has 10 shield emitters" Cairns tries to explain
"Yes we know... replicator invasion doc we where there" Sheppard grins.
"Yes Sir... the emitters each have a crystal"
"We know Doc we had to swap em around in the tray" Sheppard drawls looking annoyed slightly.
"No Sir... those are merely the control crystals... the emitter crystal is deep inside the assembly surrounded by coils and stuff... its kinda complicated and we are not entirely sure how it works but lets just say that the Odyssey has three emitter crystals that are almost 1 foot long each and Atlantis has ten crystals that are I believe?" Cairns looks too Rodney for the answer
"Atlantis has ten... 6 foot long crystals made of pure crystalline Naquadah that can't be replicated or manufactured they have to be grown... it takes us 3 months to grow the ones we are using already" Rodney sighs.
"We can begin growing the crystals needed but we are talking growing 3 per ship with the current five 304's and 7 Traveller ships needing them you are looking at 36 perfect crystals in total... we currently reject almost 60% of the crystals we produce due to flaws in their structure... so we are gonna need to produce around 100 of them and its going to take at least 18 months to grow them to the needed size Sir"
"Are you kidding me!" Sheppard's eyes widen in shock.
"Actually Colonel I think he's being a little optimistic in his assessment" Rodney adds too Sheppard's surprise "By increasing the size I think the number of rejects will grow dramatically"
"We can't know that for sure Dr McKaye but it did cross my mind we have no idea until we try though" Cairns sighs.
"Doctor Cairns you said you saw two options..." Teyla smiles warmly meeting the young man's eyes urging him to continue.
"No offence meant here but the traveller ships are not going to be going far for the moment" the young scientist aims his comment at Larin hesitantly trying to gauge her blank expression before continuing "I know that most of the ship captains are busy making repairs and some are completely overhauling systems that have to be either rebuilt or replaced"
"You seem well informed" Larin states without a hint of emotion.
"I have made a few friends amongst your people" Cairns admits nervously.
"Sarrel and Ladara?" Larin finally smiles at the nervous scientist "They said your were helpful the other day doc" Larin grins amused at the scientists sudden blush "The young doctor here helped repair their ships environmental systems... and yes you are correct doctor our ships are going to be here for a while the repairs could take months" she sighs.
"Well growing the crystals will take a while and will be necessary in the long term for both Earth and Traveller vessels... but I do have an idea that could get the 304's back out there within weeks" Cairns smiles then after glancing at Rodney he grimaces "However some people are not gonna like the idea"
"Weeks!... the answer is yes what ever it is" Sheppard says suddenly excited.
"You want to remove the emitters from the city!" Rodney shrieks eyes going wide deflating Sheppard's excitement instantly.
"No... of course not!" Cairns frowns at Rodney like he's suddenly become an idiot... then he smiles and points up in the air, everyone stares at him their eyes flicking back and forth from his finger to his face in confusion before.
"The Satellites" Ronon grunts in amusement.
"The Lagrangian satellites?... you wanna rip out their shield emitters?" Rodney finally catches up then he glares at Sheppard for him grinning at the fact that Ronon had realised something before him.
"No... I don't wanna remove the emitters... I wanna steal the satellite completely" Cairns shrugs his shoulders with a smile.
"OK... explain what you mean Dr Cairns and please try to keep this simple" Mr Woolsey says rubbing his temple.
"The Satellites already have three emitters linked directly to the ZPM, the satellite itself is smaller than the ones built in the Lantia system so I think with a little bit of work we should be able to fit the whole thing inside the 304's superstructure using the keel bay as an entry point" Cairns smiles as he sees Rodney processing the possibility.
"The bay would need to be expanded about two decks higher than it currently is" Rodney says pulling up the 304's schematics on his laptop and displaying them on the large screens around the room.
"An armoury, two storage bays and the main ring room plus the ships gym would have to make way" Cairns grins knowing Rodney is already catching up to speed.
"The rings could be moved to deck 4 room 113 without little effort I guess... you know... we could..."
"I have already figured we would need too run a new power conduit from here to there and put that there"
"What about?... oh yeh and do you think?... oh I see" Rodney continues as the others look on in wonder.
"Guy's!" Sheppard finally barks as the two scientists look up finally realising that they had become engrossed in what they where doing instead of giving their report.
"Sorry" both scientists say in union before grinning at each other.
"The kid's a genius" Rodney grins "Well not as big a genius as me obviously but never the less" Cairns suddenly blushes at McKaye's praise. "If this works and I think it might we can slip a satellite into each of the 304's... the shield that would be projected around the ship would be almost as powerful as the cities and to top it off we should be able to mount the satellites main weapon in a turret on the outside of the ship"
"You mean the big honking beam weapon that cuts hives in half in a single shot" Sheppard's eyes go wide in excitement.
"Yes Colonel... I think we should be able to run a conduit from the satellite inside of the ship to the outer hull and relocate the satellites main weapons for use..." Cairns adds with a smile as Rodney starts tapping away on his laptop furiously.
"You know this also gives us options back home" Rodney says out loud to no one in particular.
"How so Doctor" Mr Woolsey asks suddenly breaking his long silence.
"Well for a start although the Shield Disrupter Weapon is not of much use to us with the Wraith" Rodney says
"It would be a major tactical advantage in the Milky Way where every other race we have encountered uses shields instead of armour" Sheppard says with a grin
"Exactly and if we can replicate the Lagrangian satellites and grow the needed crystals it would give the ships back home two completely separate shield arrays on one ship" Rodney nods getting slightly carried away.
"I do not wish to curb your excitement" Teyla says slowly gaining their full attention "But will it not be dangerous to remove five of the satellites currently protecting this world?"
"Teyla has a point Sheppard" Larin nods.
"The Ancients defended Lantia with only 4 Lagrangian satellites for a year so I understand" Cairns smiles.
"We would still have 7 satellites in orbit plus the drones the city has and the whist docked at the outpost the cities shields links into the outposts shields protecting the whole complex utilizing all four ZPM's" Rodney grins.
"Four ZPM's" Sheppard frowns slightly.
"The city has 3 but the outpost has its own in the base of the tower, 100 hives could bombard the shield continually for a 100 years and it would still be impenetrable" Rodney grins.
"But of course the 7 satellites would tear those 100 hives apart in a single day if they did try that" Cairns adds with a smile.
"Do not get over confident... I believe that was the mistake the Ancestors made gentlemen" Teyla says with a sigh.
"Don't worry Teyla... I'll make sure he's careful!" Sheppard barks causing the two scientists to nod in agreement.
"Then I would say this breifing is over" Woolsey says with a sigh before looking at the Colonel "I need to see you for a moment Colonel" Sheppard sighs and nods its gonna be a long day.