Ace In The Hole
Chapter 56
"Unauthorised off world activation!" Walters voice shouts out loudly as the gate begins to dial in unexpectedly.
"Talk to me Walter" Landry says as he crosses the short walk way from his office to the main control room.
"No one is scheduled to dial in today sir and only SG-19 is currently off world on P3X-809" he says as the sixth chevron locks.
"Close the Iris lets not take any chances" Landry sighs but he soon frowns at a few snickers he can here from the various technicians around him.
"Raising shield sir" Walter says calmly with a knowing smile just as the gate connects.
"Right" Landry smiles shaking his head at his own mistake, the move from the oppressive bunker complex at Cheyenne Mountain to the freshly repaired gleaming Ancient city of Avalon had been difficult on everyone him most of all "Anything?"
"No sir" Walter frowns but jumps slightly at seeing the gate shield flare brightly for a few seconds before the gate disconnects.
"What the hell was that?"
"Unsure sir" Walter sighs
"Get Dr Lees up here immediately" Landry sighs, I have the feeling that its gonna be a long day.
"Readings confirm it Commander" the young female scientist hands Carter the data pad for her to take a closer look
"You're sure"
"You are welcome to check the results yourself but Dr. Rosen and I have already gone over them four times ourselves to be sure" She shakes her head sombrely "Its looking like the Primary generator was the focal point" she points to the pad showing Sam "The debris pattern is conclusive"
"But was it a technical fault? Sabotage? Or were they attacked some how?" Carter shakes her head wearily "We have been using this 60/40 ratio of Naquadah to Naquadria for almost 4 years now without a hitch so why fail now?"
"I can only tell you where the focal point of the blast was at the moment the energy signature and debris alignment is pointing to the explosion of Apollo's primary generator, but why it happened? I cant answer that yet, not until we have collected a lot more debris fragments" The young women turns to leave the bridge leaving Carter to her thoughts.
"Helm take us in closer continue scanning"
"What are we looking for Commander?"
"I'll know it when I see it" Carter sighs.
"Anything?" Landry growls at the flustered and nervous Dr Lees
"Erm well not exactly sir but I um you see..."
"General" Landry turns to see Elizabeth standing at the doorway.
"Dr Weir"
"Sir, I have been going over the logs of the unauthorised dial in and I think there is something that you should know" Elizabeth walks with the General back to his office and waits patiently for him to take a seat.
"What's going on?"
"From what my sensors are telling me, the object that impacted upon the gates shield would have not been stopped by the Iris"
"The Iris might not have been as advanced as our new Ancient shield out there is, but it managed to protect us from anything that was thrown at us through the gate before"
"The Iris was an excellent physical barrier that prevented matter from reforming that's true, but the gate shield provides a much broader spectrum of cover, it was essentially designed to stop anything harmful getting though from bombs and enemy soldiers to unwanted energy waves"
"Energy waves?"
"Such as the Dakara weapon sir" Elizabeth smiles upon seeing his sharp mind ticking over all the possibility's.
"You think we were hit by some sort of energy wave?"
"No sir, not exactly, we were hit with something that was out of phase sir, it was only sheer luck on our part that the SGC has modernized upon moving to Avalon" she says looking worried "The old Iris would not have been able to stop it"
"Commander" Carter is snapped out of her musing by one of her over eager bridge officers, she merely smiles and nods for him to continue.
"There's an object bearing 027 mark 035 distance 2.4 miles"
"What sort of object?"
"Small no more than 6cm across, but its intact and larger than any hull fragments found so far"
"If Dr Jefferson's right and the primary generators suffered a catastrophic failure the Apollo would have been almost vaporised" Carter says but quickly offers him her best reassuring smile when she sees the young man shudder.
"Ma'am" The operations officer gains her attention "Sensors show it to be a sphere of almost solid Trinium alloy"
"Almost solid?"
"There seems to be a small hollow in the centre"
"Was it in the explosion?
"No, at least I don't think so"
"I find that hard to believe due to its relative position to the debris field" Carter says pointing to the swirling mass of dust that was once a Tau'ri vessel
"Ma'am, sensors indicate that it is drifting into rather than away from the blast area"
"Is there any way that this could have caused the ship to explode?" the eager young officer pipes up from behind her causing Sam to smile.
"Easy Lieutenant" she grins at his sheepish blush "I doubt it's responsible, but its proximity indicates that it is somehow involved, beam it directly to the isolation lab on deck 3 and tell Dr Rosen to take a look at it"
"Ma'am" the op's officer nods and carries out her order
"Helm swing us around for another pass lets see if we missed anything" she sighs.
Two hours later Carter walks into Dr Rosen and Dr Jefferson's lab
"Ah Commander good"
"Give me some good news guys"
"This object appears to have been jettisoned milliseconds before the ship exploded" Rosen says with a triumphant smile
"He thinks" Dr Jefferson sighs
"The scorch marks are greatest on one facing side indicating it was some distance away from the ship when it exploded, I'd estimate about 500miles give or take, the blast wave slowed it down but it still had momentum when we found it, showing it had to have been travelling at speed to continue on the path it did to get so close to the explosion, I think that this object was purposefully jettisoned by whatever struck the Apollo" he shakes his head "Though I fail to see why"
"Have you managed to find out what is inside?"
"That was the easy part thankfully" Dr Jefferson smiles "Its a small blood sample" Carter frowns in confusion
"Blood sample?"
"Yes ma'am, the genetic markers indicate its common Feline blood"
"Cat?!"
"Yes, does that mean anything to you?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it does" Carter sighs wearily "Carter to bridge"
[Go ahead Commander]
"Set a course for Tollana"
Three hours later the Hammond drops out of hyperspace at the deepest reaches of what used to be the Tollan system and engages its cloak before heading deeper in system at a wary pace.
"Why so far out Commander?"
"The Tollans were technologically way ahead of us, if they are alive and are the aggressor we need to take extra care" She sighs
"I'm detecting four, objects? in orbit of the main planet of the system"
"Objects?"
"If they are ships they're big! By my estimates 3 miles across ma'am"
"On screen" The ship is a huge grey flat hamburger shape and from the flicker of lights coming from the outer edge windows it is enormous.
"Damn, a real flying saucer" The Lieutenant at op's chuckles causing everyone to smile releasing a little of the built up tension.
"Any evidence that they have detected us?"
"No ma'am, I'm detecting no change in their status"
"I wanna know if they so much as twitch Lieutenant got it?"
"Ma'am" he nods and returns to monitoring the alien vessels.
"Captain Phillips begin a low power narrow beam scan of the planet, look fo..."
"Commander! I don't think that's going to be necessary, we're being hailed" the young op's officer says obviously unnerved.
"One of the ships?"
"No ma'am, tight beam subspace transmission coming from almost 3 miles below the planets surface, Carter quickly runs through her options before giving him a nod and dropping back down into her seat
"On screen"
A recognisable smile greets her "Hello Samantha"
"Narim, your alive!" she says clearly shocked but the words merely cause Narims smile to grow.
"It's good to see you again" he sighs "Though I wish it could have been under better circumstances"
"I'm sorry Narim but we thought that the Tollan had been destroyed, if we had known that there were survivors"
"The Goa'uld wiped out almost all of our technology base, thankfully many of my people managed to use our phase shifting technology to escape the onslaught, they sought refuge in caves and bunkers waiting for the attack to end, unfortunately I'm afraid that just as many died from radiation poisoning and sickness as did in the initial attack"
"If we had have known"
"We have managed to build a fully self sufficient colony deep under the surface of Tollana away from the harmful radiation left behind by Anubis' attack" Narim sighs "however, a little under a year ago we began sending small teams back to the surface in an attempt to begin repairing the planets biosphere, that is when we encountered our friends" he says the word with obvious hatred.
"The ships in orbit?"
"Yes, they offered to help repair the planet in return for us helping them master hyperspace travel"
"I thought that the Tollans didn't know much about hyperspace travel?"
"Thankfully we didn't know enough to be of much use to them, although they have maintained the illusion of a partnership we both know that they are the ones currently calling the shots" Narim says in frustration "Their shield and weapons technology are very advanced but their sensors are woefully lacking" he taps a few buttons on the console beside him and the image of a weapon appears "This is a long range tactical missile that they have developed, a prototype was launched almost two months ago sent out to search and disable any Earth vessel it came across"
"Earth vessel?"
"Yes, it is why we acted, we knew that this was the only way that we would be able to get Earth's attention and warn you" he sighs and looks ashamed and nervous to look Sam in the eye.
"You destroyed the Apollo" the look off Narim is conformation of his guilt.
"We reprogrammed the missile to target your vessels main power core, a clean hit that we knew would obliterate the vessel, we had no choice they cannot be allowed to improve their hyperspace knowledge at any cost!, the Aschen must be stopped Samantha"
"Aschen?" Sam pales
"We know they have already met your people, but it is much bigger than that now, they have begun releasing bio-weapons onto dozens of worlds and they are using Tollan phase technology to attack worlds that would ordinarily be closed to them"
"Tollan technology?!"
"A few of the scientists originally captured have switched sides, some have been brainwashed into helping others are simply angry and blame Earth for our downfall" he shakes his head "It doesn't really matter now, either way they have to be stopped"
"What about you and your people?"
"Evacuate?" he shakes his head "We have been unable to build a star gate with which to escape, we do not yet possess the needed resources for such an endeavour, plus because of the Aschens indiscriminate attacks through the gate, there is currently no where my people would even consider safer than where we are, besides 1.5 billion evacuees is going to strain any worlds resources"
"Perhaps" Sam muses "Could you give me the schematics for the Aschen missile?"
"Our old laws now seem a little defunct considering how far your people have advanced in such a short time" Narim says playfully as he transmits the file.
"We have the knowledge base of the Asgard and the Ancients at our disposal" she smiles "Of course possessing it and knowing how to put it to use are two entirely different things"
"My people should have had more faith in the first world" he says solemnly
"Your leaders may have made a mistake but it taught us a valuable lesson, what happened to the Tollan and the Asgard to a lesser degree has shown us that even the wisest of people can still make a mistakes, Earth is a better world for it" she smiles warmly "I need to report this in, but I promise you, you and your people are no longer alone, Travell may have violated the treaty, but the Tollan people as a whole didn't, we'll be back as soon as we can"
"Good luck" The screen goes blank
"Helm set course to our exit point then take us to hyperspace the moment we are clear"
"Yes ma'am"
"One and half billion Tollan? Stuck underground?" O'Neill says with a glimmer of sarcasm "Wonder if its done anything for that smug self-righteous attitude of theirs?"
"Sir, putting aside the past we have to help like it or not the Tollan could help us put the knowledge base we have to better use"
"We manage" O'Neill shrugs choosing to ignore the indignant look he's getting off Landry.
"We muddle through yes, but we" she sighs "I! am at the limit of understanding what the hell is in there"
"Jack, the Jaffa, Langaran's, Hebredans, Orban, Pangarans, Tagrians, Edorans none of them are technologically as advanced as the Tollan" Daniel says with a sigh
"We need them as much as they need us"
"Lets not forget the main threat" Landry says gaining their attention "These Aschen, from what I read.."
"The Aschen are a race of humourless psychopathic nerds" O'Neill growls "The worst combination if you ask me"
"They have to be stopped"
"And how do you suppose we do that Daniel?"
"I don't know, but whatever we do it better be fast"