Ace In The Hole
Chapter 56
"As much as it pains me to admit it Landry is kinda right" McKay shrugs at Teyla's glare "Most people in Pegasus are... well I was gonna say dumb, but I'll settle for uneducated I guess" he shrugs.
"I'm glad you only said most McKay" Sheppard grins at seeing Larins murderous look.
"Hey I said most, not all, there are obviously some exceptions" he says sheepishly glancing across at her.
"So why not look on this as an opportunity instead of a burden" Lorne shrugs "Landry is kinda right, on the surface most the worlds we have out here are backwater dust balls as we used to call em in the SGC"
"Look at it as a opportunity how?" Sheppard asks with a frown
"Well its like the politicians back home always say it all comes down to three words" Lorne grins "Education, Education, Education"
"That's the same word three times" Teyla says in confusion
"I get it" Cairns grins "It was a key election promise in the UK back in the late 90's"
"We already have an education program" Sheppard says equally confused at Lorne's current train of thought.
"I think I understand" Alex says with a nod "If you truly want an advanced skilled civilization you have to start at the bottom and give all children a good start in life, an education"
"We are" Sheppard says
"The ones in the city yes, but not all of them" Teyla says catching on.
"You mean every kid!" Sheppard almost blanches at the idea
"What we set up schools on all alliance worlds?" McKay says with a frown.
"Actually" Lorne says with a grin "I was thinking of more along the lines of...Hogwarts "
"You can't be serious? Boarding school?" McKay looks aghast.
"Why not?"
"Evan that's crazy?" Sheppard says eyes wide.
"Think about it, would you want Mark or Matthew to be taught on any other world in the alliance?" Lorne says knowing the answer.
"True..." Sheppard sighs in defeat
"But that's..." McKay stutters "It could be up to a quarter a million kids maybe more" McKay fumbles "You want everyone with kids to come live in the city?"
"No" Teyla says suddenly alive with ideas "Its like Evan says… Hogwarts, we give them the option of sending their children to the safest known planet in the galaxy where they're children will get the best education we can provide"
"Do you have any idea what you are proposing?" McKay says eyes wide "A quarter million kids, even if you had hundred to a class we would still need 2500 teachers at least"
"I believe I can help there" Alex says with a huge smile plastered on his face. "The Lantian's had an excellent education system, everything needed to help teach them is here but..." he looks hesitant for a second "The big difference is that the Lantian children always stayed with their parents, I believe I could modify many of the residential towers to meet our needs, may be even begin construction of new towers but it's going to take time to organise"
"We will need to keep kids separated into age groups so that there is less opportunity for bullying"
"Calebs school is currently having good results he needs to be heavily involved if not running it" Sheppard says pointedly towards Teyla
"I agree"
"It's gonna take forever to have them all gating into the city every new school term" Rodney says trying to sound interested and not patronising.
"We pick ten relatively safe worlds say Degan, Galdora, and Sarisia to name a few, you know worlds that we know the sentinel net is heavily covering and have them assemble there then gate em in on mass"
"157 member worlds 1000 kids a world even bringing them in via 10 assembly worlds its still gonna be 15700 kid trying to gate in from each world that's still 413 kids a minute gotta get through the gate!" McKay says patronisingly
"I know the math Rodney!" Sheppard growls
"I didn't realise the predicament" Teyla says suddenly deflated.
"We'll figure it out" Lorne says with a grin.
"We'd need one big frickin school bus that's for sure" McKay chuckles patronisingly thinking the idea is dead and he can get back to work.
"Rodney!" Teyla grins suddenly excited "You're a genius"
"Damn!"
"All of the children?" Halling asks visibly stunned at Teyla and Larins ambitious proposal.
"We believe that it could work" Teyla says to the assembled delegates.
"You wish to turn our children into warriors?" Tamar says looking slightly aghast.
"No" Larin says with a grin "I told you that is what they would think" she says to Teyla pointedly.
"How many of you here could repair the damage to this weapon" She throws a battered wraith stunner onto the table in front of her "Or could any one of you hope to fix a starships hyperdrive, how many in this room can read the language of the ancestors?" Teyla sighs retaking her seat to smile at the 157 assembled delegates currently sat listening "We need to change, we need to regain what was lost"
"Would we not loose our individuality, knowledge that is currently passed father to son, mother to daughter, the history of each of our worlds would be forgotten?" Tamara of Tuklon says with a deep rooted sadness shining from her weary eyes.
"It's true that History, Language and culture may suffer but we must strive improve our knowledge base as a whole, science, mathematics and technology must be at the forefront of our efforts" Teyla says firmly "Look I know each and everyone of you teach your children the best you can, my own people the Athosains teach our children from an early age to hunt and farm and trade, this of course means that we have to teach our children mathematics, commerce and diplomacy but it is not enough"
"The Viacastra's and Lantian sentinel systems that are now increasingly protecting member worlds have only come about because the people of Earth were advanced enough to put them in place" Larin says gaining their attention "If Earth fell tomorrow who would you turn to? My own people realised long ago that the only way we could continue our nomadic existence was if we taught today's children to be tomorrow engineers, scientists and yes even warriors but in the end the path they choose is always as it should be, their decision"
"This will need much debate Teyla" Tamar says hesitantly
"I'm sorry Tamar I do not wish to disagree with you but Tuklon has been culled far to often of late if it means our children be safe even for only a part of each year, then my people will definitely move to support this proposal" Tamara says gaining a few more nods of agreement.
"Rodney!" Teyla barks causing Sheppard and Dr Cairns to grin
"Don't you have meetings?" He snarks at Sheppard in retaliation "And I thought I'd finally be rid of you when Adaris left for Earth" McKay says with a scowl.
"Dr Cairns has graciously agreed to being transferred to Atlantis permanently" Sheppard smiles and nods towards the young British scientist "Apparently you haven't managed to scare this one off as easily as you normally do"
"Probably more likely something to do with his strange fascination with a certain cities avatar that has kept him here" McKay mumbles causing Cairns to blush furiously.
"Ignore him doc"
"Thank you Colonel, I usually try to" he says with a playful sneer at McKay.
"Rodney!"
"Alright!" he growls before lowering the lights to start his briefing.
"Being as I"
"We!" Cairns snaps causing McKay to grimace
"OK, sorry we! designed it, we get to give it a code name" McKay postures
"Rodney so help me!" Sheppard barks
"Say hello to the NX-01" he puffs out his chest "And the NX-02 class of ships"
"Two ships?" Teyla says in surprise
"NX? Really? Sheppard shakes his head
"Told you they'd be impressed" McKay says pointedly at Cairns who just roles his eyes.
"The NX-01 Dagger Class Gunship, at 60 meters long, 36 metres wide and only 5 metres high she's...truly a miniaturised version of Destiny" McKay calls a blue print of Destiny up on the monitor beside the Dagger class though the shape is identical there is one obvious difference.
"She's tiny!" Sheppard says with a frown
"At a twentieth the size of Destiny, she is slightly longer than a Goa'uld Al'kesh but less mass overall"
"This is your big idea?" Sheppard frowns causing Cairns and Rodney to smirk at him.
"Colonel, the dagger has been envisioned as a rapid response gun ship much like Earth's planned 307 Warden class" Cairns says nodding to McKay to continue.
"The Dagger will be more than capable of out flying anything out there that we know of thanks to these" He highlights two pods under the belly of the slim craft"
"Are they?"
"We have managed to fully utilise the Puddle Jumpers drive system and scale it up, thanks to the experiments we have been running on the starfighter prototypes"
"The fighters I haven't even been allowed to see let alone test fly yet!" Sheppard moans causing McKay to glare at him for interrupting.
"As I was saying! Our experiments have really given us a good solid understanding of how these things actually work and we are pretty confident that this baby will out fight a F-302 in a dogfight" McKay smirks at Sheppard's silence.
"As well as being extremely fast and maneuverable, thanks to its shields it will be able to out last anything it meets and more importantly out gun anything it needs to" Cairns adds.
"Comparing her to the Tau'ri's planned equivalent" Rodney displays the schematic of a ship that is obviously Tau'ri designed
"The 307 is classified as a search and patrol vessel but she's essentially gonna be a small gunship armed with a single nose mounted Asgard weapons battery and two of the new enhanced Tollan ion cannons"
"No rail guns?"
"The 307's are not gonna be big enough to carry the ammo, at only 34 metres long they are gonna be smaller than an Al'kesh but more than capable of going toe to toe with an Ha'tak"
"There are more features but..."
"So what makes your ship better?" Teyla asks with a frown
"This" Rodney points to a long slender barrel running along almost half of the keel of the ship "As well as an Asgard battery and two enhanced Tollan ion cannons we have managed to squeeze a Lantian energy lance into the design as well"
"It will only be able to fire straight ahead but the sheer stopping power of this weapon to what it actually requires to power it means we would be mad not putting it in the design" Cairns says.
"That's why we wanted manoeuvrability think of this ship as the White Star of the new Lantian fleet" McKay chuckles knowing Sheppard will get the B5 reference.
"The Dagger has been designed to operate with a minimal three man crew, in reality a single man will be able to run the ship whilst the other two are resting only when the ship is in combat do we envisage all three being needed"
"What is that at the rear?" Teyla asks pointing to something protruding slightly from the hull
"That would be a docking port, we have actually designed her to dock on to the Destiny" Cairns grins
"What?" Sheppard says in surprise
"This is the ship we are sending to rescue Destiny, the Dagger will lock onto Destiny's main shuttle port here and extend her hyperdrive field to encompass both ships then she will re-enter hyperspace taking the Destiny along with her, after that Destiny herself can activate her own slipstream drives thus boosting them both to hyper-slip velocity" McKay almost sing songs.
"What about power and provisions?" Sheppard sighs "Everett and his people were almost down to nothing when they went into stasis"
"According to Alex's design notes the Ancients hadn't even discovered Trinium when she was originally built and more importantly she was sent out before the ancients had access to ZPM's" Cairns says "Its actually quite fascinating really because the power storage system on board Destiny is a direct forerunner to a ZPM"
"The crystalline housing of a ZPM is basically like the digital version of the Destiny's analogue power storage tanks, in essence they are doing the same job only getting their actual power from different sources"
"Are you saying we can plug a ZPM into Destiny?"
"Probably"
"Eventually ,maybe" Cairns sighs "But even if we can't we should be able to temporarily link the two ships power grids together safely enough to get them home in one piece, as for provisions the Asgard matter synthesisers, I so wanna say replicator's" Cairns grins "Anyway they should be able to restock the ship easy enough its not gonna be great food but its certainly good enough to keep them alive"
"So how long do you think it will take you to build this ship?" Teyla asks whilst trying to stifle a yawn discreetly.
Both McKay and Cairns grin at each other before changing the display on the monitor to a live feed of the almost complete ship on slipway one of the Correlia station.
"Coulson said that Cal thinks it may be another 2 maybe 3 days before they've turned down the beds" McKay says with a twinkle in his eyes at Sheppard's slack jawed stare.
"He's forgetting to mention she has no shields until we get the new crystals" Cairns says snapping everyone's attention back.
"How long did it take to build?"
"Cal laid the keel on the 6th" McKay chuckles
"That was only 4 days ago!" Teyla says suddenly wide awake "We are not gonna be able to build one that fast normally" Cairns says sadly
"We had built quite a stockpile of materials that we used to construct the prototype, but at the current rate we are mining and shipping it in we will not be able to keep pace easily" McKay shakes his head frustratedly "Not to mention the shortage of shield crystals and ZPM's"
"Once we get Destiny back for Cal to scan we hope to figure out the last hurdle though" Cairns says excitedly
"And that is" asks Sheppard leaning forward slightly in anticipation
"Figuring out how to use the stars to power our ships instead of relying on a standard ZMP" McKay says whilst bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement "The crystalline case of the ZPM is basically just an advanced storage chamber that creates its own pocket universe of subspace time, it could hold the high energy plasma of a star just as easily as it does zero point rift energy"
"To be honest Colonel the actual physics here are difficult to explain to each other" Cairns point to McKay and himself causing McKay to acquiesce with a nod and a shrug "We think we know how the solar energy gets from the collectors to the storage system but until we see Destiny's analogue version we aren't exactly 100% sure how to proceed"
"The blueprints show us what to do but not how to do it" McKay admits grudgingly.
"You mentioned a second ship?" Teyla says with an enigmatic smile.
"The NX-02 Sword Class Cruiser, the dagger is basically a single room and cockpit not much bigger than a Tel'tak inside, The Sword is basically our heavy hitter, but at only 3 decks and 180 meters long she is still going to be smaller than a 304" Cairns says with a small smirk forming.
"But" McKay says excitedly "I pity the Hive ship that meets one of these babies, we have basically taken all of the features of the 306 Achilles Class battleship added to it and then put it in a much smaller smaller package"
"Remember in a starship its the life support section that takes up the most space and resources, and a 306's air wing will take up a huge amount of space to operate effectively" says Cairns
"The Sword will have three sequentially firing Lantian lances, three Asgard weapons batteries, Fourteen Tollan Ion cannons, twelve of which are the enhanced type and about 300 drones" McKay ticks off with a smile.
"What are these enhanced cannons you speak of?" Teyla asks with a frown.
"Instead of the single barrel heavy hitting standard variety that the Tollan's used and the Asgard later perfected, we have managed to create a new combined version, they're not gonna be as good at taking out capital ships..."
"With all the other guns does that really matter" Sheppard says whilst trying not to drool at the schematics on display
"Well, in this four barrel version the two large barrels are linked to the standard ion weapon system giving it a rapid fire anti fighter capability but the two smaller barrels are linked to two new additional weapon systems incorporated into the cannon itself, one is the shield disrupter weapon the other an ARG" Cairns says with a smile.
"He likes to cover all his bases" McKay shrugs.
"There is something more?" Teyla says now grinning herself at the two excited scientists in front of her.
"How did you know?" asks Cairns surprised.
"Rodney's finger is still itching towards his data pad" She laughs
"This bit all depends on getting the gamma gates up and running of course but if we can" McKay presses a button and on the schematics a Stargate appears to lower out of the underneath of the vessel "Any sword that required fighters could send a subspace signal to us, and we could have a whole battalion of fighters dispatched and pouring through that gate within minutes"
Sheppard stares at the screen blankly for a few minutes before "This could be cool!"