Ace In The Hole
Chapter 63
The silence and tranquillity of space is momentarily disturbed as Dagger One smoothly exits hyperslip, its initial speed decreasing rapidly until the small craft comes to a complete stop.
"Almost there" Lorne calls out with an excited grin plastered on his face.
"Just gimmi a few minutes, I'll get my checks done as quickly as I can, I just need to make sure everything's still OK" Cairns says bolting for the rear of the ship.
"It's a little late to be concerned laddy" Carson sighs
"Oh come on Carson, where's your sense of adventure?" Lorne laughs has he tinkers with the ships controls.
"Adventure!"
"We are breaking a pretty big record here" Lorne says clearly excited "Its taken taken Destiny millions of years to travel this far out, we've done it in 42 days"
"That may be, but I still wish it were some other bloody idiot sat here breaking the records rather than me" He shrugs "I was quite happy and content on Eden thank you"
"The hyperdrive is running at 100% efficiency so I'm more than happy" Cairns says with a smile as he drops back into his seat.
"You still want to give it a rest though?"
"Yes, At least 12 hours preferably, the coils are fine but they do need a chance to cool down" he taps a few buttons on the console In front of him "There's a class M world nearby, it's less than 15 minutes at slipstream"
"I thought you had to run a slipstream drive for a minimum of four hours" Lorne asks with a frown.
"Looks like someone's been reading up" Carson smirks.
"I thought it might come in handy" Lorne shrugs
"Destiny was built before the Ancients had discovered trinium, adding it into the mix makes a hell of a lot of difference" Cairns says with a smile.
"Is that what's in all these bloody crates?" Carson points his thumb over his shoulder to the many crates piled high in the rear compartment of the small vessel "I had a panic attack last night because of how bloody Claustrophobic it feels back there"
"Sorry about the cramped conditions"
"This thing wasn't meant to haul cargo that's for sure" says Lorne as he engages the slipstream drive into FTL.
"You know, I kinda like this way of travelling" Carson says finally relaxing a little "It seems a much more sedate pace if you ask me"
"We are still hurtling through space at god knows how many miles a second" Lorne laughs whilst shaking his head at Carson.
"I could tell you exact figure if you want?"
"Don't ruin it for me laddy" Carson glares at the young scientist who merely shrugs and continues working on console in front of him.
"What are you doing?" Carson tries to peer across
"Just making sure..."
"Making sure about what?"
"I want to know Destiny inside and out before we get there, so I can get the two ships hooked up as quickly and painlessly as possible"
"Makes sense I guess" Lorne says with a shrug.
"You know getting here was the easy part" Cairns sighs "Pinpointing Destiny's exact location is going to be a tougher one"
"So how do we know, we are where we a supposed to be?" Lorne asks suddenly concerned.
"This is galaxy-TCJ-1109GW, we already know that its the last galaxy that Destiny travelled through" Cairns shrugs "Before it started its 3 year jump that is"
"You know this how?"
"Alex gave me her course, the crew made a few changes but for the most part they didn't wonder far off track"
"Hang on! correct me if I am wrong" Carson says sounding alarmed "Wasn't this galaxy supposed to be full of killer bloody drones"
"Do you know the statistical chances are that we are going to run into drones at our one and only planetary stop in this entire galaxy" Cairns says with a bemused shrug as they finally drop out of slipstream.
"You had to say it!" Lorne barks.
"I'm detecting multiple targets inbound" Cairns says a slight hint of panic evident in the tone of his voice.
"Shouldn't we get out of here?" Carson almost shrieks.
"Sorry Carson we've put her through loads of tests, but I wanna see how this baby handles real combat" Lorne glances over his shoulder at the panicked doctor with a grin.
"Shields and weapons on line Colonel" Cairns says clearly trying to rein in his nerves and get a grip of the situation.
"hang on tight"
A beam of pure energy fired from the keel mounted Lance weapon eviscerates three drones in a single blast as the Dagger ploughs through the disorganized alien fleet before banking hard to port whilst unleashing a barrage of Ion Cannon fire that rakes across the outer rows of flanking drone ships, the remaining small alien craft spin around on their axis trying desperately to give chase but before they can lock on to their target the Dagger shimmers out of sight, mere moments pass before the Dagger reappears this time on the opposite side of battle from its disappearance it quickly unleashes two beams of super heated plasma from its Asgard batteries that tear through more of the disorganized drones.
"Command ship at 003, mark 027"
"I got it" Lorne says clearly enjoying himself "How we doing?"
"Shields are fine, and now I now you have aspirations of being a Klingon, I'll endeavor to speed up the transition time it takes to switch between the cloak and shields" Cairns laughs
"Sci-fi has always come up with the best moves" he says with a grin "And as Anakin put it, spinning is always a good trick"
The Dagger begins to roll into a tight spin as it races towards the Command ship, bolts of Ionized energy quickly blasting a large circular pattern of destruction into the front of the huge alien vessel. Explosions begin erupting down the crafts entire length growing in size rapidly until the ship explodes violently, suddenly in an instant the pursing drones are dead in space.
"Drones are off line Colonel"
"I'll swing her around and take them out"
"Ahh, no need Colonel just hold her steady" Cairns says with a grin.
At the press of a button the two wing mounted Ion Cannons pivot 180' and begin raking the lifeless drones to pieces within the space of thirty seconds there is nothing left but charred debris.
"You telling me you could have done that at the start?" Lorne asks clearly equal parts impressed and annoyed.
"They may be mounted on the wings but they are still Tollan Ion cannons, so of course they can still be switched to point defence mode" Cairns shrugs clearly happy that the ship had exceeded all expectations.
"You could have told me that I just needed to sit there"
"Are you kidding!" Cairns nervously smiles "And miss all the fun?"
"Fun!" Carson stammers clearly upset "Bloody crazy fools, I can't believe you lowered the bloody shields!"
"We were cloaked" Evan shrugs "I wanted to know if she could pull it off"
"And she did" Cairns says smugly "Though you could have given me a little warning"
"Crazy... Sons of ..." Carson jumps out his seat clearly headed for the bathroom.
"Sorry" Lorne shouts at his rapidly retreating form
"Frickin Ass Holes!"
Six days later in the void between galaxies the Dagger drops out of hyperslip the small craft barely visible in a sea of endless darkness, it merely drifts for a few minutes peacefully before suddenly without warning re-entering hyperslip.
"This is getting boring" Carson sighs as he looks out of the window at the ripples of energy forming the boundary of the hyperslip tunnel.
"Keep it down" Cairns sighs with a frown "Lorne only hit the sack an hour ago"
"How many more of these jumps do we have?"
"363 down 737 to go" he sighs"
"There has to be a better way than this" Carson sighs being mindful not to touch any of the controls surrounding him "I hate sitting in this chair" he adds glaring at the pilots control panel like its a viscous beast waiting to attack.
"You were the one who said you didn't like the chair empty" Cairns looks at the doctor like he is suddenly studying a complex puzzle
"What?"
"It's just..."
"Just what?
"well, most people that have the gene naturally are usually less" Cairns grins "whiny" Carson glares at him indignantly.
"funny"
"I thought so" Cairns smiles as his console beeps indicating the ship has reached another way point the small craft automatically drops out of hyperslip and begins scanning.
"Nothing..." Cairns sighs and nods for Carson to make the next jump but before Carson can press the control the console bleeps.
"Contact!" Cairns says clearly excited "Heading 027, mark 074 travelling at slipstream velocity zero point nine seven"
"Is it them?" Cairns gives the doctor a witheringly look
"How many other slipstream capable vessels have you encountered?"
"Point taken" Carson says pursing his lips.
"Colonel!" within minutes Lorne is stood next to him wearing nothing but his boxers furiously rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"What's up"
"We've found her" Cairns points to the blip on the monitor
"See that's what I don't get?" Carson says coming to look at the screen.
"Rodney is always going on about it being next to impossible to track a ship whilst its travelling" Carson says pointing to the glowing dot "so how are we seeing that?"
"Destiny's Stargate is constantly on the move therefore it has to constantly update its location in relation to the network" he glances up making sure Carson understands him "Remember as far as the ships concerned it has to be ready to drop out of FTL and receive an incoming wormhole at a moments notice, now in order to do this its Stargate basically Ping's the network every 10 seconds to update its location, thanks to Alex our sensors have been calibrated to detect that Ping"
"Only for a relatively short distance" Lorne says pointing to the dot about to move off his screen
"True but now that we know her heading and speed" Cairns grins "she ain't gonna loose us"
"But she's right there" Carson says glaring out of the window as he leans over Lornes shoulder trying to get another look.
"Carson" Lorne sighs
"Sorry,... but she's bloody well right there!"
"Yes, but she's still In Slipstream" Cairns sighs glaring at his screen clearly annoyed.
"I thought you said that if we got close enough you could get her to drop out of slipstream"
"I did"
"I thought that it was going to be a cake walk?" Lorne says clearly frustrated.
"It was supposed to be" Cairns sighs "I'm as confused about this as you are"
"Are you sure its working right?" Carson says coming to look over his shoulder
"This signal is supposed to trick Destiny into thinking that someone is trying to gate in"
"Which would make her stop" Carson says with a sigh finally grasping the situation "do we need to get closer? Could that help?"
"Any closer and we would seriously risk collapsing both slipstreams"
"Isn't that what we want" Lorne asks glancing over his shoulder.
"We need a controlled exit, an uncontrolled exit would tear us both apart scattering our atoms light years apart"
"Scratch that one" Carson says "I don't suppose we could just beam across"
"You volunteering?" The look of terror upon Carsons face quickly rules out that idea.
"I can't believe we've made it all this way just to get stuck" Lorne sighs looking across at the streaking form of Destiny 500 meters to his starboard.
"I sure as hell don't wanna pace this thing all the way to the next bloody galaxy that's for sure" Carson groans as he drops into his seat.
"Pace?... Carson I could..." the Scot looks at him in surprise "Colonel engage hyperdrive we need to get in front of her, I have an idea" Two minutes later the Dagger drops out of hyperspace and immediately goes into slipstream
"Do you wanna clue us in?" Lorne says spinning in his chair to look at the scientist.
"Destiny is traveling directly behind us at a slipstream velocity of point nine seven, rather than pacing her if we drop our speed to point nine six nine she will catch up to us very slowly"
"I thought merging slipstreams was a bad idea?"
"She's a much bigger ship with a much bigger slipstream envelope by entering from the front we may get buffeted about a bit but I don't think it will collapse the actual slipstream fields" Lorne notes his nervous look and raises an eyebrow.
"What are you not saying?"
"That we will only get one chance at this, if we don't hit the mark first time and dock our field will collapse and we will crash into her"
"Oh great" Carson starts pacing
"And?" Lorne looks at his expectantly
"The Ion drives" Cairns points his finger over his shoulder towards the rear of the ship "That push us along in slipstream will have to be cut at least 3 seconds before we dock"
"Why?"
"The thrust they put out would tear through Destiny's hull"
"Without thrust to match her speed we will slam into her anyway" Lorne shakes his head "We'll never make it"
"I think I may be able to off set the thrust if I max out the drive pods"
"You want me to match course and try to dock whilst moving at..."
"Several million miles a second... yes" Cairns says sheepishly
"by using... oh boy"