Ace In The Hole
Chapter 64
"Three minutes to insertion"
"This is crazy, no its beyond crazy its bloody well insane!" rants Carson as he paces back and forth manically in the cramped space of the Daggers tiny control room.
"Carson will you sit down!" Lorne growls as he roles his neck desperately trying to relax in preparation for the stress that he knows is to surely come.
"Sit down? Evan this is bloody crazy and you know it"
"All I know is we have three options we try it this way, we follow the damn thing all the way to the next galaxy cooped up in here for the next 15 months or.."
"Or we go home" Cairns sighs "Colonel we could always just go home and come back closer to when she's due to drop out of slipstream, no one would blame us, no one not even Alex could have known the gate dial in code wouldn't work" he furiously taps at his console trying it for the hundredth time to trick the Destiny's dial-in subroutine "The only way that it could have failed is if they have some how disabled the gate, two minutes"
"Can this crazy plan of yours work?" Lorne says glancing over his shoulder
"Yes, it can work... but its gonna be close" the three men silently exchange glances for a period before, "One minute" Cairns says glancing once more at the timer on his screen.
"Lets get it done" Lorne announces with clear determination "and Carson please keep quiet and let me concentrate this is gonna be hard enough" Carson merely nods before clinging desperately to his seat in complete silence.
As the the front of Destiny inches towards the Tail of the Dagger a ripple of force shudders between the two ships, glowing clouds of energy seem to form between the two speeding vessels like two angry storm fronts fighting a battle for dominance, crackles of lightning fork between the two vessels causing the smaller craft to pitch and role like a ship in a stormy ocean but within seconds the clouds dissipate as rapidly as they were formed, as slowly and surely the Dagger begins to inch its way back along the length of Destiny mere metres above the hull.
"Well done Colonel just keep her steady, the docking por... Oh shit!"
"What?" Carson bleats
"The bloody shuttles still docked there!" Cairns says clearly panicked
"Doc!?"
"One of Destiny's shuttles is docked at the main central docking port!"
"You didn't see it before we started this crazy move?" Lorne asks incredulously.
"From where we were earlier it looked a lot higher and further back, I assumed she was on the docking port off to the side"
"We are running out of time" Lorne says clearly panicked "can we shoot it out the way"
"Way to risky!, it could blow up taking us all with it, or debris could collapse the..."
"A simple no will suffice... Come on doc... gimmi options"
"We are running out of time!" Carson pleads as the image of the huge ships pyramid like structure looms closer into view on the monitor.
"I have an idea!" he starts taping on his console furiously "Follow the plan! Ignore the shuttle just keep going!"
"Ignore the shuttle!" Lorne says equal parts panic and amusement.
"Throttling up the drive pods to maximum" as the words come out Lornes mouth the Dagger groans slightly in protest at the stresses its being put under "Three seconds until Ion drive cut off doc!"
Three second seem to pass instantly, with a thunderous roar the Daggers Ion drives finally disengage the change in speed instantly throwing them forward in their seats for milliseconds as the drive pods struggle to hold the tremendous velocity, with a monstrous bang the Dagger hits the deck hard scraping along hurtling towards the shuttle at break neck speed. Suddenly in a brilliant flash of light the shuttle disappears as the Dagger slams into the Destiny's docking port taking its vacated place with a jolt.
"You beamed it out?" Lorne says incredulously.
"Where did you beam it to?" Carson asks amazed.
"No where yet, its in the buffer" he says with a self satisfied smile.
"Docking clamps engaged all systems powering down" Lorne sighs "What's our status?"
"The hulls got a few stress fractures and we have busted the docking systems power couplings but other than that"
"She is one hell of a ship" Lorne says grinning at the young scientist.
"Thanks" he blushes "Umph!" he muffles as Carson throws his arms around him.
"Don't ever ask me to do this again" he grumbles clearly glad everyone is OK.
"Come on Guys" Lorne says pushing them both apart whilst nodding towards the docking port at the rear "We have a job to do"
"Aye, and people to save"
"This place smells like my aunt sally's old socks" says Carson as he tentatively breathes in the stale air
"Life support is powered down to minimum" says Cairns glancing at his trusty data pad "We need to get main power online before we use up what little oxygen is left"
"All this way just to suffocate" Lorne laughs "I could go back to the Dagger and grab a few breathers" he says flicking his thumb over his shoulder
"We should be OK, according to the schematics the control hub is not to far, this way" he leads them quickly through the maze of endless corridors to finally arrive at the hub.
"Bloody hell" sighs Carson whilst looking at the confusing looking work station with a grimace.
"Millions of years old Carson" grins Cairns as he quickly connects his pad up to the console "Show the old girl a little respect" he concentrates for a few seconds before smiling as the sound of fresh air finally begins to flow through the vents.
"Where's the crew?"
"It looks like they are spread out across numerous decks, according to this they are all fine"
"We need to..." Cairns is cut off as a video pops up on the screen and begins to play.
["Hey guys, it's me. I recorded this hoping that you see it before trying to dial out anywhere, I tried fixing the faulty pod for nine full days and well in the end I failed, it was just to badly damaged" On screen Eli sighs deeply his eyes misting over slightly as he gazes off into the middle of nowhere as if suddenly realizing his own end could quite possibly be upon him, but the beginnings of a small smile soon blossoms into a huge grin "I think that I have figured out a way to get through this, I managed to gain access to the gates primary dialing program and to get it to, I hope, store me in the gates buffer system it should spit me out upon command but hey who knows" he smiles a cheery warm smile "If it doesn't work, I just wanna say good luck... I love you guys and I'm gonna miss you"
"Is it possible?" asks Lorne surprised at the idea that the gate could be used this way
"Its sorta been done before" says Cairns as he brings up a map to the gate room "Teal'c got stuck in the gate before as I recall"
"That was an incoming wormhole if I remember correctly"
"Eli Wallace is a genius, do you know how many people tried to have a go at solving the Icarus equations"
"I know McKay failed" Lorne laughs
"McKay, Carter, Lees, ,Felger, Travis, McDonald, Simms, Rush and I will admit even me" he smiles sheepishly glancing at the Colonel "The UK government recruited me and three other British scientists right out of university they threw the Icarus equations at us as our final test"
"You said you couldn't solve it?" asks Carson the beginnings of a smirk slowly creeping across his face.
"They knew we probably wouldn't be able to solve it, they just wanted to see how we coped under the pressure" as they enter the gate room cairns nods "If anyone could pull this off it would be him"
The scientist quickly connects his data pad once more and begins to work for a few seconds, a smile quickly slides onto his face as the Stargate suddenly activates without warning or the usual kawoosh, the event horizon merely snapping into place instead, a few seconds later a confused Eli emerges.
"Erm... Hello" he says hesitantly to the unknown men.
"You can relax Mr Wallace" Lorne says in a calm yet authoritative manner "I'm Lt. Colonel Evan Lorne, this is Dr Carson Beckett and Dr David Cairns"
"Okay" he says still glancing around the room unsure as to how they had arrived "I'm sorry but are you from"
"Earth?" asks Lorne raising his eyebrow slightly until he sees Eli nod nervously "sort of"
"Sort of?"
"We are all originally from Earth but we've actually set out from Atlantis"
"Last I heard Atlantis was still on Earth?"
"A lot has changed, Atlantis left Earth over 15 months ago"
"Really?" Eli says clearly surprised and slowly starting to relax "So how the hell did you get here?"
"We flew" says Cairns with a smile
"Flew?" Eli says obviously thinking it a joke "no seriously"
"We flew here Eli" Lorne says clearly not joking
"That's impossible"
"After everything you've seen don't you realise now that there is no such bloody thing as impossible laddy" Carson sighs
"Hang on, where are we?" says Eli suddenly sounding nervous once more.
"The crew went into the pods a little over 17 months ago"
"But that means we are still no where near the next galaxy" panic suddenly upon him "We will fall short" he begins pacing causing the three arrivals to merely stare at him "Destiny won't have enough power to finish the crossing"
"Oh really?" says Cairns , as he quickly shrugs off his back pack before opening the top to reveal the glowing ZPM inside "She will now"
"Keep them in stasis?"
"Just until we are finished the most basic of repairs" says Cairns as he leads Eli back to the Dagger sitting on the shuttle port.
"That" he stares at the slender black ship "That thing got you here, in under 50 days? But she's tiny"
"Well like they say size isn't everything, we would have been a lot faster if we hadn't have had to search for you" Cairns shrugs
"I still don't see why you think its a good idea to keep the others in stasis"
"Like I said we need to get Destiny patched up a little better before hooking up the ZPM" Cairns sighs as they enter the Dagger
"Wow, brought enough luggage?" Eli says wide eyed at the piles of storage cases stacked floor to ceiling.
"They aren't luggage" laughs Cairns "hey I just thought, are you hungry?"
"A little" Eli admits sheepishly "are they supplies?" he nods to the cases causing Cairns to chuckle.
Cairns walks over to a panel embedded into the wall of the ship that has a microwave sized opening he presses a few buttons and in a flash there is a burger, fries and a coke sitting in the space. Cairns merely smiles at the stunned look on Eli's face.
"You... you have a replicator?"
"You know I so wanna call it that but..." he shrugs disheartened "synthesizer, replicators have a whole other meaning in the SGC I'm afraid" He says handing Eli the tray, before he starts to unfasten one of the many crates he can't help smile as Eli sits happily on one of the empty bunks and proceeds to devour the meal.
"You can order more if you like, the menus quite extensive" Cairns grins "I tried to get it to accept voice commands" he shrugs " but we haven't managed to iron out all the bugs in the system yet"
Eli quickly jumps up flicks through the menu and in a flash a bar of his favourite candy appears "Oh god" he says kissing the wrapped bar causing them both to laugh.
"So what's in the boxes?" he asks between mouthfuls
Popping open the last clasp Cairns lifts the lid to reveal eight silvery grey balls set in a layer of foam.
"Kino's?"
"Kino's? Cairns asks in confusion.
"Sorta floating cameras, we've been using them to survey planets"
"Ah" Cairns nods before shaking his head "Then no these are not Kino's"
"What are they then?" he asks savouring the last bit of chocolate.
"Renatus drones" he says removing the first football sized device with two hands.
"OK?" he says staring at the sphere "So what's it do?"
"We've managed to reprogram them with Destiny's original blueprints" He says with a smile "They are not only gonna repair Destiny, they have enough Trinium pre-stored in their buffers for Destiny to be reborn"
"I can't believe its working" says Eli a few days later
"Why?"
"It sounded, well crazy"
"The Renatus drones are programmed to repair the ship to conform to its original blueprints and each drone has pre absorbed half a ton of refined pure Trinium into its synthesis chamber, getting them to change the composition of the hull is a relatively easy process, instead of the Naquadah, Steel and carbon mix she was originally built with the steel will be removed and replaced at the molecular level with the Trinium, now half a ton of Trinium might not sound like a lot but being as Trinium is a hundred times lighter than steel the 80 drones we have released are more than enough"
"Destiny's power systems are almost completely rebuilt" Eli marvels at the data on the bridge consoles "And all the breaches on the outer hull have been sealed"
"Once we have the major systems repaired and the ZPM is online Carson will revive most of the others on board"
"I have to admit It will be good to have them all up and about again, it seems strange without them around" he says with a smile happy in the knowledge that they are going home at last.