This Isn't Kansas
Chapter One
General Hank Landry felt a confusing mix of emotions as stood...
Chapter One
General Hank Landry felt a confusing mix of emotions as stood...
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This Isn't Kansas
Chapter One
General Hank Landry felt a confusing mix of emotions as stood before one of the few view ports on the Odyssey, gazing out upon space. The cause of his turbulent emotions was the beautiful blue and green world that the Daedalus-class cruiser was currently orbiting, or rather the diminutive but technologically highly advanced aliens who called said world home.
A week had passed since they'd arrived here in orbit of the Asgard homeworld Orilla after the long hyperspace flight from Earth. A week since Thor, the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet, had transported aboard with news that was unbelievable as it was tragic. A week since they'd been told that the end of days had come for the once mighty Asgard race. Seven productive but also very sad days since they'd been told that the Asgard were giving the whole of their immense knowledge, all their incredibly advanced technology to Earth before ending their lives in a single massive act of racial suicide.
Like everyone on board the Odyssey the knowledge that the Asgard would soon be extinct didn't sit well with him. The Asgard had been Earth's allies and protectors for so long that knowing they soon wouldn't be there anymore, that they would be for the first time in years be truly on their own, was a deeply uncomfortable, somewhat frightening prospect. It certainly put a downer on any sense of euphoria that Hank might have felt at being given the advanced technology of the Asgard. Technology that would go a very long way towards protecting Earth from anyone who wished her and her people harm; especially the vampire-like Wraith and the religious fundamentalist Ori. Yet somehow that prospect did nothing to make up for the fact that the Asgard would soon be no more, living on only in human memory and in the technology they'd be using to fulfil their destiny as the Fifth Race. It had led to a melancholy air being present throughout the ship as the crew slowly, privately tried to come to terms with the inevitable.
Mentally shaking himself Hank tried to shake off his increasing depressing thoughts but found it far from easy to do so. Especially as he knew from Colonel Carter's reports – reports that reading between the lines hinted at Samantha Carters own anguish at the knowledge of the Asgard's fate – that the upgrades to the Odyssey were almost completed. The Asgard really only had to bring the computer core they'd installed online, make a few final calibrations to the ships newly enhanced power grid and all would be done.
I wish there was another way, Hank thought looking back at Orilla just as a small Asgard vessel passed by below them – descending to the planet as the Asgard brought the last of their people home from distant outposts and settlements across the Ida Galaxy for the last time. The sight filled him with sorrow for what he knew would soon follow, though naturally it didn't break through to show on his face. I wish there was a way to save them from the disease that's slowly killing them, he thought, but there is no way, short of the Ascended swooping in to help – which is as likely as Hell freezing over – there is nothing anyone can do to save the Asgard race from extinction.
The sudden whooping blare of the battle stations klaxon brought him out of his thoughts just as the intercom blared to life. "General Landry to the bridge," Major Kevin Marks said his voice echoing off the trinium-titanium alloy bulkheads. "Repeat General Landry to the bridge."
"Now what," Hank muttered as he abandoned his position and headed towards the Odyssey's bridge a few metres from his previous location in the commanding officers quarters.
"What is it, major," Hank asked as he stepped onto the bridge whose lights had dimmed slightly to combat levels.
"Sir three ships just came out of hyperspace sixty thousand kilometres out from the planet," Major Marks reported, his tone grim. "Ori motherships, they're approach Orilla, their shields are up and weapons are being powered."
"How did they find us," Hank asked as he settled into the command chair a millisecond before a dull rumbling boom echoed through the hull and the Odyssey shook as brilliant lance of energy from one of the Ori ships slammed into her hurriedly raised, newly upgraded shields.
"Unknown sir," Marks replied as another searing yellow beam slammed into the shields shaking the ship but otherwise doing no harm. "Shields are holding," he reported just as the intercom crackled to life.
"Sir," Colonel Carter's voice reported. "The Asgard just disembarked, Thor said we need to leave now. But it's going to take a few minutes for me to get our hyperdrive back online."
"Understood," Hank, replied before looking at the helm. "Get us out of orbit."
"Yes sir," the young woman at the helm answered bringing the Odyssey's gravitic ion sublight engines to life and angling the small Tau'ri warship out of orbit of Orilla.
"Sir one of the Ori ships is pursuing us," Marks reported as the ship took yet another jarring hit from the Ori beam weapon. "The other two are moving into orbit of Orilla, I think they want to invade the planet."
"Is there some reason why we're not jumping to hyperspace," Colonel Cameron Mitchell's voice abruptly said startling Hank, who glanced over to see that the team leader of SG-1 had come onto the bridge, with Daniel Jackson and Teal'c only a few steps behind him.
"Carter's working on it," Hank replied as the ship shuddered under another attack. If there is one thing I can say about the Ori they're bloody persistent, he thought a moment before a moment before the sensors bleeped an urgent warning even as the ship shuddered as the Ori fired at them again.
"Sir sensors' are picking up a massive build-up of energy coming from the planet," Marks reported in a combination of concern and sorrow. Sorrow as like everyone else on the bridge he knew what the energy spike would signify and concern for the safety of the Odyssey given what was coming, especially with their shields already being put under strain resisting the powerful Ori weapons fire.
"Everyone hold on tight," Hank, ordered bracing himself on the arms of the command chair. All around the bridge the crew did the same.
~~//~~
As the Odyssey charged out in open space, only just managing to keep on the edge of its pursuer's weapons range the other two Ori motherships settled into orbit of Orilla and prepared to commence an initial orbital bombardment. Though fully confident of the inevitability of their victory, they did have the power of the gods behind them after all, the commanding Priors weren't about to take chances with the Asgard. The little grey aliens were after all a very old, very powerful race one they would be foolish to underestimate. Bombarding major defence and fleet installations prior to landing their crusaders was simply good tactical sense.
Abruptly sharp energy spikes registered on the sensors of both motherships as devices that had been built over the last few months by the saddened, but accepting, Asgard race activated. Immediately safety systems were overridden and the containment fields on dozens of neutrino-ion generators failed releasing the massive amounts of energy contained within into normal space. Huge explosions erupted across the surface of Orilla as generator complexes instantly dissolved into their component atoms. The sheer heat and force of the blasts sending a wave of flames across the entire planet as the atmosphere caught fire, instantly incinerating anything on the surface in a firestorm of biblical proportions.
Simultaneously devices buried in Orilla's crust detonated sending massive pulses of energy down into the planets mantle and core pushing the nuclear elements present there to and past critical mass. The resultant thermonuclear explosion was colossal and instantly ripped Orilla apart, shattering the planet as if it was made of brittle glass and briefly giving birth to a new sun to light the collective souls of the Asgard race on their way to Valhalla.
Travelling at FTL speeds the subspace blast wave of the detonation smashed into the two orbiting motherships before the commanding Priors could even begin to process what was happening, let alone react to it. The wave instantly stripped away the powerful shielding surrounding the motherships; tearing the energy bubble apart as if it were nothing and not a barrier that had so far defeated almost all attempts to penetrate it by conventional means. Milliseconds later massive chunks of semi-molten debris from the crust and mantle smashed into both ships ripping them apart in less than a second – the flashes of their destruction being lost in the brilliant flare that accompanied the complete annihilation of the once lush world of Orilla.
The subspace radiation and blast wave continued travelling outwards from where the planet had once been, slamming into both the Odyssey and the last Ori mothership. Fortunately for both vessels the wave had lost a great deal of its destructive force by the time it reached them; the shields protecting both vessels flared brilliantly they didn't buckle under the strain of resisting the momentary onslaught. As the flare of stressed shields faded away the final Ori mothership fired upon the Odyssey again, unleashing another brilliant spear of energy from the massive particle beam weapon in its bow.
~~//~~
Bridge
USS Odyssey
General Landry held on grimly as the ship rocked with the latest blast from the Ori ship that was still on their tail despite the best efforts of the helmswoman to shake it off.
"Shields down to sixty percent," Major Marks reported a moment before the intercom on the arm of the command chair came to life.
"Sir the hyperdrive is back online," Carter reported. "But we need to get clear of the radiation cloud left by the explosion before we can open a hyperspace window."
"Understood," Hank, answered a millisecond before another blast from the Ori ship shook the ship and make sparks shoot out of an overloaded junction box at the back of the flight ops section that made up the rear of the bridge.
"Shields down to fifty percent," Marks reported grimly. "One minute thirty seconds till we clear the radiation cloud."
"We're not going to make it at this rate," Cam Mitchell said equally grim knowing that even with the ZPM powering them the Odyssey's shields were far from indestructible – even Asgard technology had its limits after all.
Hank thought frantically for some way to improve their chances, as there was no way he was going to let the Ori win and destroy the Asgard's legacy. The Asgard legacy that's it, he thought thumping the intercom. "Colonel Carter can we use the new Asgard energy weapons," he asked.
"They've not been tested yet sir," Carter cautioned.
"No time like the present," Hank replied as the ship shuddered under another yet another attack from their extremely persistent Ori friends. "Helm come about, Major Marks power the energy weapons. Fire as soon as you bear."
"Yes sir."
~~//~~
In a move that the considerable larger and much more cumbersome Ori mothership couldn't hope to match the Odyssey veered sharply to port and climbed upwards before swooping down so it came at the Ori vessel from both above and behind. Immediately small bolts of blue light erupted from the Ori ship as secondary pulse arrays around the perimeter of the oval shaped vessel started tracking and firing upon the much more nimble Earth ship. The less powerful but still dangerous pulse weapons slammed repeatedly into the Odyssey's shields, setting the weakening force field aglow with the strain of repelling the righteous fury of the Ori. Even as the shields flared newly added turrets on the Odyssey swivelled around and locked onto their target as power flashed out of the ZPM, through miles of hyper-conductive conduits and into the capacitors of the newly installed energy cannons, instantly bringing them online.
For a moment more, nothing happened then a brilliant thin whitish-blue spear of energy erupted from the first of the cannons. Instantly the beam crossed the distance separating the two ships and set the Ori shields aglow before fizzling out. Immediately a second beam lanced out, then a third and a forth. For the first time in the experience of any Ori crew a mothership shuddered violently under enemy fire, its dorsal and aft shielding flaring a brilliant white under the strain of repelling the powerful Asgard weapons.
Two more beams in rapid succession struck the shields, the sixth beam partly punching through to scorch the ivory-coloured hull of the mothership. A seventh beam erupted from the Odyssey and instantly sliced into the hull of the Ori ship through the hole that had opened in the overstressed shields. Armour and the hull metal underneath vaporised as the beam cut deep into the normally mighty vessel inflicting horrendous damage and knocking everyone on board off their feet. Debris and the bodies of dead and dying crewmembers flew into space as the beam shut off as multiple compartments across three decks suddenly and violently decompressed. Internal force fields activated and emergency bulkhead doors slammed closed isolating the damaged sectors off from the rest of the vessel, but not before the sudden release of atmosphere acted like a crude thruster making the ship yaw sharply to port.
An eighth and final beam burned across space from the Odyssey, sliced right through the buckling Ori shields, and slammed into the hull. As before armour and hull metal vaporised allowing the beam to cut deep into the vessel, eviscerating section after section across multiple decks before it sliced into then through the doomed ships power core. The result was as spectacular as it was devastating. No longer confined or directed the exotic energy of the core burst outward, smashing solid matter apart, wiping away bulkheads, decks and crew as if they'd never been present at all. The hull deprived of key supporting structures collapsed momentarily in upon itself before it met the blast from the power core coming the other way and was instantly blown away, disintegrating into a plume of dust and torn semi-molten metal fragments ranging in size from a standard playing card to the size of a small truck.
~~//~~
Shocked, awed silence gripped the bridge of the Odyssey as before the amazed eyes of the command crew the Ori mothership, a normally nigh on invincible dreadnought, disintegrating into a ball of fire, plasma and rampaging energy. The explosion was enormous but short lived, within moments it faded leaving nothing behind but a spreading cloud of irradiated dust and torn metallic fragments.
"Well I'll be damned," Hank said amazed by the fact that they'd just done something that had been thought nigh on impossible blown a fully armed and operational Ori mothership to so much dust. In fact, the only time they'd been able to destroy an Ori ship in the past had been when Teal'c had lured it over the Ori's own supergate as it activated so the unstable vortex of the opening wormhole literally tore it in half.
"We got them," Mitchell breathed barely able to believe what they'd just accomplished and how easily they'd been able to do it. The Asgard really did come through this time, he thought, these new weapons are really cool General O'Neill is going to be so jealous that he wasn't here to see us use them for the first time.
"That we did colonel, that we did," Hank agreed feeling no small amount of glee at now having the tools to destroy Ori motherships. No longer would the Ori be able to just roll over their forces with impunity. The destruction of that ship would put the evil group of Ascended Beings – if they were still alive as there was still some question over if they'd been destroyed or not by the detonation of the Sangraal – on notice that the days of their followers crusade having a free run were over.
"Move us out of the radiation cloud," he ordered the helmswoman after a moment. "Then take us into hyperspace on course for Earth."
"Yes sir."
~~//~~
Silently, gracefully Odyssey pulled away from the slowly spreading debris field that was all that remained of the destroyed Ori mothership. The small but now extremely powerful warship glided into clear space, clearing the radiation cloud that had been created by the destruction of Orilla.
As the ship slipped clear of the radiation, cloud her hyperdrive, newly upgraded to the very latest in Asgard hyperspace technology, powered up and directed a powerful subspace field at space directly ahead of the ship. For a few milliseconds the space ahead of the ship resisted the tremendous pressure being exerted upon it but then the quantum folds of the space-time continuum parted and the swirling maelstrom of a hyperspace window burst into existence with a silent roar of power. For a moment the Daedalus-class ship didn't move as it gathered its power before leaping forward with a burst of acceleration and vanishing into the hyperspace window, shooting away from Orilla at speeds many times greater than that of light. The hyperspace window folded closed behind the ship, vanishing as if it had never been present at all returning peace to Orilla's system; a place that was now the graveyard of a noble people who had met a tragic end.
~~//~~
A Short Time Later
Colonel Samantha Carter frowned at the information that was being displayed on the computer tablet she was holding as she made her way through the corridors of the Odyssey on her way to the mess hall for a coffee. The tablet was showing readouts from the engineering systems, specifically readings relating to the hyperdrive as it propelled the Odyssey through subspace on her way back to Earth.
It was obvious from the readings that something very strange seemed to be going on with the engine. Hyperdrive core temperature readings were slightly higher than they should have been, though nothing to be particular concerned about as it was far off the red zone. She knew that could be because of the changes the Asgard had made to the power grid and coolant lines when they'd replaced the old hyperdrive with their latest model. The existing coolant pumps might not be quite up to the task of cooling the new drive down properly; which meant she would have to look at designing some replacements, which would be quite a headache. Alternatively it could be that one of the pumps just needed to be overhauled. She hoped it was as that would be a lot easier as she was far enough behind on her lab work already thank you very much.
No, it wasn't the hyperdrive core temperature spike that was causing her concern. Instead, it was the odd readings that the subspace field coils – one of the most essential pieces of the whole hyperdrive assembly – were giving off. There seemed to be a very strange phase variance in the coils, it had been there ever since they'd entered hyperspace a few hours ago but it was starting to get steadily worse. Maybe the field coils are slightly out of alignment that could explain the odd phase variance and the core temperature spike, she thought punching in a series of commands remotely giving the engineering computer some instructions.
A moment later, the results came back and she scowled. According to the quick diagnostic the subspace field coils were in perfect alignment, there seemed to be no reason for the variance to be there. Hmm field coils are in alignment so what else could be causing the variance, maybe the sensors are faulty, she thought scowling at the tablet as if it would give her some answers, all the while she was wracking her brain trying to figure out what could be going on with the hyperdrive. And if the phase variance – if it really existed and it wasn't a simple sensor malfunction – presented any danger to the Odyssey, her crew and the legacy entrusted to their care by the Asgard.
She was so caught up in trying to understand that she didn't hear approaching footsteps and thus was caught completely by surprise when General Landry's voice came from behind her.
"Colonel Carter just the person I needed to see," he said as she turned to look at her superior officer. "We'll soon re-enter the Milky Way and be back within communications range of Earth. The president and the IOA are going to want to know how quickly we can recreate this new Asgard weaponry for our other ships."
"To be honest sir I haven't had a chance to look at the new weapons in any real detail," Sam replied. She could see where the president and the IOA would be coming from as one ship, no matter how advanced it was, wasn't going to be enough to win the war with the Ori not to mention they still had the Wraith and Lucian Alliance to worry about, though the latter was more an annoyance than a serious threat. "All I've been able to learn so far is the weapons, unlike previous Asgard weapons, use supercharged plasma particles focused and compressed into a laser-like energy beam. Quite how the Asgard did that I'm not sure yet. But to be honest sir I'm more concerned with our hyperdrive."
Hank frowned. "Have we taken some damage," he asked recalling how the repeated blasts from the Ori ship had shaken the Odyssey before they destroyed it. For some reason the engineers had never been able to fine tune the inertial dampeners enough to compensate for the fluctuations in a ships gravitational fields caused by weapons impacts. Hence ships shook when hit, shaking that could easily have caused some damage to the ship as it rattled circuit boards, conduits and control crystals about.
"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But the hyperdrive is running a little hotter than it should be and the sensors are spitting back some concerning readings. I think we should drop out of hyperspace and run a few diagnostics just to be on the safe side."
"Alright," Hank agreed not about to disagree with Sam about the issue. "Head back down to engineering and prepare to run diagnostics. I'll give the order to drop out of hyperspace as soon as we cross back into the Milky Way. That way if something does go wrong were not stranded between galaxies."
"Yes sir."
~~//~~
Bridge
A Few Minutes Later
"Sir we've crossed back into the Milky Way."
Hank Landry nodded at the helmswoman's report. "Very well drop us back into normal space," he ordered.
"Yes sir," the young woman acknowledged before flicking a switch on her console, instructing the hyperdrive to power down. The response was immediate. The distant background humming of the ships hyperdrive faded while beyond the view ports the shifting blue-white tunnel of the hyperspace conduit flashed and vanished. For a moment they could see nothing beyond a faint blur of colour which rapidly faded as the gravitic ion sublight engines overcame the effects of hyperspace inertia and brought the ship back down to first a safe sublight speed and then to a complete stop in space.
Satisfied Hank tapped the comm. control on the arm of his chair. "Colonel Carter we're back in normal space, begin your diagnostics," he said calmly.
"Understood sir, I'm taking the hyperdrive off line now," Carter responded from engineering.
"How long will these diagnostics take," Hank asked.
"Not long sir. Only a couple of minutes," Carter responded reassuringly. "Provided everything checks out normally we should be able to get underway again in about twenty minutes."
"Understood, inform me as soon as we're ready to get back underway."
"Yes sir."
Hank signed off and leaned back as much as the command chair would allow him to, before taking a computer tablet from a storage pocket on the side and starting to get to work on writing his report for President Hayes, General O'Neill and unfortunately the bureaucrats of the International Oversight Authority. He hated to think how Jack would react when he was told that the Asgard no longer existed as Hank was well aware that Thor had been a very good personal friend of Jack's. The other man would thus be understandably very upset when told of the Asgard's fate. While at the same time he knew the big kid in Jack would be ecstatic that they'd finally gotten their hands on the 'big honking space guns' he'd been craving for practically ever since first stepping through the Stargate. And not just 'big honking space guns' but ones capable of destroying Ori motherships.
At least they can on this ship. If we can duplicate them it remains to be seen if they'll be as effective on our other ships, he thought knowing that thanks to the ZPM the Odyssey had a much higher available energy reserve than any other Daedalus-class ship in the fleet. Which was the main reason why even before the Asgard's latest upgrades the Odyssey had had stronger shields than any ship in their infant space fleet as well as having the unique ability to cloak herself. In all probability, while they'd still be powerful, the beam cannons would likely not be quite as effective. Indeed it was likely with their more limited energy reserves other Daedalus-class vessels would have fewer beam emitters than they did, especially if they wanted to use the weapons at their full capacity. But that would be something for Carter and the other science and engineering geeks to sort out.
Mentally shaking off those thoughts Hank continued writing his initial summary and making notes for what to put in the main body of the report, what was essential and extraneous information. He was just about to start on the first paragraph of the main body when alarms abruptly went off around the bridge. Immediately he saved his work and looked up.
"Report," he ordered recognising proximity warning alarms.
"Sir, sensors show two ships dropping out of hyperspace twenty thousand kilometres astern of us," Major Marks reported. "Ori motherships, they're raising shields and powering up weapons."
Hank cursed the Ori's timing. "Shields up," he ordered.
No sooner than the order left his lips a deep, rumbling boom echoed through the ship and the Odyssey shuddered violently. Both enemy ships had opened fire, sending coruscating yellow beams of destruction smashing into the ships aft shields making them flare brilliantly with strain.
"Evasive manoeuvres," Hank ordered, "bring the energy weapons on line and return fire."
"Yes sir," the helmswoman and Major Marks both acknowledged.
~~//~~
Like a spooked rabbit the Odyssey burst into motion, her powerful and advanced gravitic ion drives – originally based on Hebridan technology but improved over the years with the addition of some Lantean tech from the Ancient database in Atlantis – accelerating her from a standstill to hundreds of meters a second in moments. Simultaneously she banked downward counting on her superior manoeuvrability to escape getting blasted.
It immediately seemed to pay dividends as the next pair of beams missed her by hundreds of meters. Immediately the aft beam turrets fired back sending a pair of beams into the bow shields of the closest mothership, dropping them by nearly twenty percent and making the ship shudder with the impact. Though startled by the damaging fire, and the fact that their ships were physically shuddering when struck, the Priors kept up their assault both ships firing their main cannons again. One beam missing its target by miles but not the other, instead it slammed into the Odyssey's dorsal shielding pushing the ship and her crew down against the plane of their own artificial gravity field.
Not giving their quarry chance to recover from the brutal hit both Ori ships fired again. Beams spearing into the Odyssey's shields making them flare brilliantly under tremendous strain. Then the smaller ship was out of the firing cone of the main guns, looping down and away. Immediately secondary pulse arrays opened fire on the impertinent Earth ship, even as the two motherships started coming around to bring their main cannons back to bear.
~~//~~
"Shields at sixty percent," Major Marks reported grimly as the rapidly tracking pulse cannons of the Ori ships secondary armaments pummelled the ship relentlessly. Even with the ZPM boosting them the Asgard shields protecting the ship were rapidly weakening under the relentless firepower, firepower that could blow even an Anubis upgraded Ha'tak to pieces in just a handful of shots.
"Colonel Carter what's the status of our hyperdrive," Hank asked into the comm. He was well aware that even with the new Asgard shields and weapons the Odyssey couldn't go up against two Ori motherships on her own for very long. For all their size and odd shape Ori motherships weren't exactly sluggish when it came to manoeuvring… a fact that was proven a second later as another searing yellow beam slammed into the shields as they came around enough for the Odyssey to come back into the firing cone of one of the motherships main cannon. Marks quickly returned the favour slamming a pair of plasma beams into the shields of the offending mothership, setting them aglow and shaking the vessel violently. Still it was another reminder that this was a battle that they wouldn't win.
"I'm bringing it back online now sir," Sam reported from engineering, a moment before the ship shuddered under another beam strike, from the same mothership. As before Marks fired back immediately the second of the two beams partially piercing the shields to scorch and pit a section of the ships forward hull.
"Minor damage to the second mothership," Marks reported a note of satisfaction in his voice that they'd at least given one of their antagonists a bloody nose. The satisfaction faded somewhat as his gaze fell on the flashing shield corrosion warnings. "Shields down to thirty percent, they won't withstand this attack much longer sir."
"Fortunately they won't have to," Hank replied as a barrage of pulsed energy bolts rattled the ship, the rapidly tracking Ori guns tagging them despite their ongoing attempts at evasion. "Get us out of here," he ordered the helmswoman.
"Yes sir stabilising flight vector, opening hyperspace window," the helmswoman acknowledged as she brought the ship back onto a steady course, thus making it much easier to jump to hyperspace, while also engaging the hyperdrive.
~~//~~
Immediately a hyperspace window burst into existence ahead of the Odyssey and the battlecruiser began advancing towards it at high speed, and the safety of hyperspace that it offered. Unfortunately for the crew the Prior's of Ori had other plans that didn't involve letting them escape, especially given the worrying battering their own ships shields had taken from their quarry's retaliatory fire. Both motherships fired… coruscating sun-yellow beams of death streaking towards the Daedalus-class vessel.
In another world, indeed in many other worlds, the beams would have missed the Odyssey by miles as she entered the hyperspace window. But not this time, not in this reality. Instead the beams caught her just as she crossed the event horizon of the hyperspace window, the beams breaking apart as they encountered the immensely powerful subspace field being generated by the hyperdrive merging with both the field and the spatial distortion of the active hyperspace window.
For a moment out of time nothing happened. Both ship and hyperspace window remained static, motionless, unchanging. Then the hyperspace window flashed and rippled with green and white light instead of its normal greenish-blue. The massive amount of unstable, destructive energy imparted by the Ori beams warping and distorting it at the very quantum level, warping it into something else.
Hundreds of tiny singularities, fissures in the very fabric of subspace, formed in the event horizon despite the best efforts of the Asgard computer core on the Odyssey to stabilise the hyperspace field and compensate for the intense energy influx. One such fissure formed inside the hyperdrive core itself, ripping the quantum structure of space-time inside the perimeter of the hyperspace field apart, instantly breaking everything aboard the ship down into its basic subatomic components in the same way a transporter beam or Stargate would for transport and pulling them into itself and out of the universe.
With a brilliant flash the hyperspace window closed, a rippling wave of subspace distortion bursting outward from where it had once been. The wave slammed into both motherships like the fist of an angry god, ripping away their shields and sending both ships tumbling end over end like flotsam in the middle of a hurricane. For several seconds the two ships tumbled, helpless to resist the forces that had gripped them, then the subspace shock wave dissipated and the somewhat space sick Priors were able to bring them back onto even keels.
Once they had their vessels back under control both Prior's scanned for the Odyssey, knowing that even if the infidel's ship had been able to make it into hyperspace they would have still picked up the energy signature of the Asgard computer core. A signature that had allowed them to track the ship all the way here from Orilla where the other three ships of their task group had met their ends. They found nothing.
Odyssey was gone.
Chapter One
General Hank Landry felt a confusing mix of emotions as stood before one of the few view ports on the Odyssey, gazing out upon space. The cause of his turbulent emotions was the beautiful blue and green world that the Daedalus-class cruiser was currently orbiting, or rather the diminutive but technologically highly advanced aliens who called said world home.
A week had passed since they'd arrived here in orbit of the Asgard homeworld Orilla after the long hyperspace flight from Earth. A week since Thor, the Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet, had transported aboard with news that was unbelievable as it was tragic. A week since they'd been told that the end of days had come for the once mighty Asgard race. Seven productive but also very sad days since they'd been told that the Asgard were giving the whole of their immense knowledge, all their incredibly advanced technology to Earth before ending their lives in a single massive act of racial suicide.
Like everyone on board the Odyssey the knowledge that the Asgard would soon be extinct didn't sit well with him. The Asgard had been Earth's allies and protectors for so long that knowing they soon wouldn't be there anymore, that they would be for the first time in years be truly on their own, was a deeply uncomfortable, somewhat frightening prospect. It certainly put a downer on any sense of euphoria that Hank might have felt at being given the advanced technology of the Asgard. Technology that would go a very long way towards protecting Earth from anyone who wished her and her people harm; especially the vampire-like Wraith and the religious fundamentalist Ori. Yet somehow that prospect did nothing to make up for the fact that the Asgard would soon be no more, living on only in human memory and in the technology they'd be using to fulfil their destiny as the Fifth Race. It had led to a melancholy air being present throughout the ship as the crew slowly, privately tried to come to terms with the inevitable.
Mentally shaking himself Hank tried to shake off his increasing depressing thoughts but found it far from easy to do so. Especially as he knew from Colonel Carter's reports – reports that reading between the lines hinted at Samantha Carters own anguish at the knowledge of the Asgard's fate – that the upgrades to the Odyssey were almost completed. The Asgard really only had to bring the computer core they'd installed online, make a few final calibrations to the ships newly enhanced power grid and all would be done.
I wish there was another way, Hank thought looking back at Orilla just as a small Asgard vessel passed by below them – descending to the planet as the Asgard brought the last of their people home from distant outposts and settlements across the Ida Galaxy for the last time. The sight filled him with sorrow for what he knew would soon follow, though naturally it didn't break through to show on his face. I wish there was a way to save them from the disease that's slowly killing them, he thought, but there is no way, short of the Ascended swooping in to help – which is as likely as Hell freezing over – there is nothing anyone can do to save the Asgard race from extinction.
The sudden whooping blare of the battle stations klaxon brought him out of his thoughts just as the intercom blared to life. "General Landry to the bridge," Major Kevin Marks said his voice echoing off the trinium-titanium alloy bulkheads. "Repeat General Landry to the bridge."
"Now what," Hank muttered as he abandoned his position and headed towards the Odyssey's bridge a few metres from his previous location in the commanding officers quarters.
"What is it, major," Hank asked as he stepped onto the bridge whose lights had dimmed slightly to combat levels.
"Sir three ships just came out of hyperspace sixty thousand kilometres out from the planet," Major Marks reported, his tone grim. "Ori motherships, they're approach Orilla, their shields are up and weapons are being powered."
"How did they find us," Hank asked as he settled into the command chair a millisecond before a dull rumbling boom echoed through the hull and the Odyssey shook as brilliant lance of energy from one of the Ori ships slammed into her hurriedly raised, newly upgraded shields.
"Unknown sir," Marks replied as another searing yellow beam slammed into the shields shaking the ship but otherwise doing no harm. "Shields are holding," he reported just as the intercom crackled to life.
"Sir," Colonel Carter's voice reported. "The Asgard just disembarked, Thor said we need to leave now. But it's going to take a few minutes for me to get our hyperdrive back online."
"Understood," Hank, replied before looking at the helm. "Get us out of orbit."
"Yes sir," the young woman at the helm answered bringing the Odyssey's gravitic ion sublight engines to life and angling the small Tau'ri warship out of orbit of Orilla.
"Sir one of the Ori ships is pursuing us," Marks reported as the ship took yet another jarring hit from the Ori beam weapon. "The other two are moving into orbit of Orilla, I think they want to invade the planet."
"Is there some reason why we're not jumping to hyperspace," Colonel Cameron Mitchell's voice abruptly said startling Hank, who glanced over to see that the team leader of SG-1 had come onto the bridge, with Daniel Jackson and Teal'c only a few steps behind him.
"Carter's working on it," Hank replied as the ship shuddered under another attack. If there is one thing I can say about the Ori they're bloody persistent, he thought a moment before a moment before the sensors bleeped an urgent warning even as the ship shuddered as the Ori fired at them again.
"Sir sensors' are picking up a massive build-up of energy coming from the planet," Marks reported in a combination of concern and sorrow. Sorrow as like everyone else on the bridge he knew what the energy spike would signify and concern for the safety of the Odyssey given what was coming, especially with their shields already being put under strain resisting the powerful Ori weapons fire.
"Everyone hold on tight," Hank, ordered bracing himself on the arms of the command chair. All around the bridge the crew did the same.
~~//~~
As the Odyssey charged out in open space, only just managing to keep on the edge of its pursuer's weapons range the other two Ori motherships settled into orbit of Orilla and prepared to commence an initial orbital bombardment. Though fully confident of the inevitability of their victory, they did have the power of the gods behind them after all, the commanding Priors weren't about to take chances with the Asgard. The little grey aliens were after all a very old, very powerful race one they would be foolish to underestimate. Bombarding major defence and fleet installations prior to landing their crusaders was simply good tactical sense.
Abruptly sharp energy spikes registered on the sensors of both motherships as devices that had been built over the last few months by the saddened, but accepting, Asgard race activated. Immediately safety systems were overridden and the containment fields on dozens of neutrino-ion generators failed releasing the massive amounts of energy contained within into normal space. Huge explosions erupted across the surface of Orilla as generator complexes instantly dissolved into their component atoms. The sheer heat and force of the blasts sending a wave of flames across the entire planet as the atmosphere caught fire, instantly incinerating anything on the surface in a firestorm of biblical proportions.
Simultaneously devices buried in Orilla's crust detonated sending massive pulses of energy down into the planets mantle and core pushing the nuclear elements present there to and past critical mass. The resultant thermonuclear explosion was colossal and instantly ripped Orilla apart, shattering the planet as if it was made of brittle glass and briefly giving birth to a new sun to light the collective souls of the Asgard race on their way to Valhalla.
Travelling at FTL speeds the subspace blast wave of the detonation smashed into the two orbiting motherships before the commanding Priors could even begin to process what was happening, let alone react to it. The wave instantly stripped away the powerful shielding surrounding the motherships; tearing the energy bubble apart as if it were nothing and not a barrier that had so far defeated almost all attempts to penetrate it by conventional means. Milliseconds later massive chunks of semi-molten debris from the crust and mantle smashed into both ships ripping them apart in less than a second – the flashes of their destruction being lost in the brilliant flare that accompanied the complete annihilation of the once lush world of Orilla.
The subspace radiation and blast wave continued travelling outwards from where the planet had once been, slamming into both the Odyssey and the last Ori mothership. Fortunately for both vessels the wave had lost a great deal of its destructive force by the time it reached them; the shields protecting both vessels flared brilliantly they didn't buckle under the strain of resisting the momentary onslaught. As the flare of stressed shields faded away the final Ori mothership fired upon the Odyssey again, unleashing another brilliant spear of energy from the massive particle beam weapon in its bow.
~~//~~
Bridge
USS Odyssey
General Landry held on grimly as the ship rocked with the latest blast from the Ori ship that was still on their tail despite the best efforts of the helmswoman to shake it off.
"Shields down to sixty percent," Major Marks reported a moment before the intercom on the arm of the command chair came to life.
"Sir the hyperdrive is back online," Carter reported. "But we need to get clear of the radiation cloud left by the explosion before we can open a hyperspace window."
"Understood," Hank, answered a millisecond before another blast from the Ori ship shook the ship and make sparks shoot out of an overloaded junction box at the back of the flight ops section that made up the rear of the bridge.
"Shields down to fifty percent," Marks reported grimly. "One minute thirty seconds till we clear the radiation cloud."
"We're not going to make it at this rate," Cam Mitchell said equally grim knowing that even with the ZPM powering them the Odyssey's shields were far from indestructible – even Asgard technology had its limits after all.
Hank thought frantically for some way to improve their chances, as there was no way he was going to let the Ori win and destroy the Asgard's legacy. The Asgard legacy that's it, he thought thumping the intercom. "Colonel Carter can we use the new Asgard energy weapons," he asked.
"They've not been tested yet sir," Carter cautioned.
"No time like the present," Hank replied as the ship shuddered under another yet another attack from their extremely persistent Ori friends. "Helm come about, Major Marks power the energy weapons. Fire as soon as you bear."
"Yes sir."
~~//~~
In a move that the considerable larger and much more cumbersome Ori mothership couldn't hope to match the Odyssey veered sharply to port and climbed upwards before swooping down so it came at the Ori vessel from both above and behind. Immediately small bolts of blue light erupted from the Ori ship as secondary pulse arrays around the perimeter of the oval shaped vessel started tracking and firing upon the much more nimble Earth ship. The less powerful but still dangerous pulse weapons slammed repeatedly into the Odyssey's shields, setting the weakening force field aglow with the strain of repelling the righteous fury of the Ori. Even as the shields flared newly added turrets on the Odyssey swivelled around and locked onto their target as power flashed out of the ZPM, through miles of hyper-conductive conduits and into the capacitors of the newly installed energy cannons, instantly bringing them online.
For a moment more, nothing happened then a brilliant thin whitish-blue spear of energy erupted from the first of the cannons. Instantly the beam crossed the distance separating the two ships and set the Ori shields aglow before fizzling out. Immediately a second beam lanced out, then a third and a forth. For the first time in the experience of any Ori crew a mothership shuddered violently under enemy fire, its dorsal and aft shielding flaring a brilliant white under the strain of repelling the powerful Asgard weapons.
Two more beams in rapid succession struck the shields, the sixth beam partly punching through to scorch the ivory-coloured hull of the mothership. A seventh beam erupted from the Odyssey and instantly sliced into the hull of the Ori ship through the hole that had opened in the overstressed shields. Armour and the hull metal underneath vaporised as the beam cut deep into the normally mighty vessel inflicting horrendous damage and knocking everyone on board off their feet. Debris and the bodies of dead and dying crewmembers flew into space as the beam shut off as multiple compartments across three decks suddenly and violently decompressed. Internal force fields activated and emergency bulkhead doors slammed closed isolating the damaged sectors off from the rest of the vessel, but not before the sudden release of atmosphere acted like a crude thruster making the ship yaw sharply to port.
An eighth and final beam burned across space from the Odyssey, sliced right through the buckling Ori shields, and slammed into the hull. As before armour and hull metal vaporised allowing the beam to cut deep into the vessel, eviscerating section after section across multiple decks before it sliced into then through the doomed ships power core. The result was as spectacular as it was devastating. No longer confined or directed the exotic energy of the core burst outward, smashing solid matter apart, wiping away bulkheads, decks and crew as if they'd never been present at all. The hull deprived of key supporting structures collapsed momentarily in upon itself before it met the blast from the power core coming the other way and was instantly blown away, disintegrating into a plume of dust and torn semi-molten metal fragments ranging in size from a standard playing card to the size of a small truck.
~~//~~
Shocked, awed silence gripped the bridge of the Odyssey as before the amazed eyes of the command crew the Ori mothership, a normally nigh on invincible dreadnought, disintegrating into a ball of fire, plasma and rampaging energy. The explosion was enormous but short lived, within moments it faded leaving nothing behind but a spreading cloud of irradiated dust and torn metallic fragments.
"Well I'll be damned," Hank said amazed by the fact that they'd just done something that had been thought nigh on impossible blown a fully armed and operational Ori mothership to so much dust. In fact, the only time they'd been able to destroy an Ori ship in the past had been when Teal'c had lured it over the Ori's own supergate as it activated so the unstable vortex of the opening wormhole literally tore it in half.
"We got them," Mitchell breathed barely able to believe what they'd just accomplished and how easily they'd been able to do it. The Asgard really did come through this time, he thought, these new weapons are really cool General O'Neill is going to be so jealous that he wasn't here to see us use them for the first time.
"That we did colonel, that we did," Hank agreed feeling no small amount of glee at now having the tools to destroy Ori motherships. No longer would the Ori be able to just roll over their forces with impunity. The destruction of that ship would put the evil group of Ascended Beings – if they were still alive as there was still some question over if they'd been destroyed or not by the detonation of the Sangraal – on notice that the days of their followers crusade having a free run were over.
"Move us out of the radiation cloud," he ordered the helmswoman after a moment. "Then take us into hyperspace on course for Earth."
"Yes sir."
~~//~~
Silently, gracefully Odyssey pulled away from the slowly spreading debris field that was all that remained of the destroyed Ori mothership. The small but now extremely powerful warship glided into clear space, clearing the radiation cloud that had been created by the destruction of Orilla.
As the ship slipped clear of the radiation, cloud her hyperdrive, newly upgraded to the very latest in Asgard hyperspace technology, powered up and directed a powerful subspace field at space directly ahead of the ship. For a few milliseconds the space ahead of the ship resisted the tremendous pressure being exerted upon it but then the quantum folds of the space-time continuum parted and the swirling maelstrom of a hyperspace window burst into existence with a silent roar of power. For a moment the Daedalus-class ship didn't move as it gathered its power before leaping forward with a burst of acceleration and vanishing into the hyperspace window, shooting away from Orilla at speeds many times greater than that of light. The hyperspace window folded closed behind the ship, vanishing as if it had never been present at all returning peace to Orilla's system; a place that was now the graveyard of a noble people who had met a tragic end.
~~//~~
A Short Time Later
Colonel Samantha Carter frowned at the information that was being displayed on the computer tablet she was holding as she made her way through the corridors of the Odyssey on her way to the mess hall for a coffee. The tablet was showing readouts from the engineering systems, specifically readings relating to the hyperdrive as it propelled the Odyssey through subspace on her way back to Earth.
It was obvious from the readings that something very strange seemed to be going on with the engine. Hyperdrive core temperature readings were slightly higher than they should have been, though nothing to be particular concerned about as it was far off the red zone. She knew that could be because of the changes the Asgard had made to the power grid and coolant lines when they'd replaced the old hyperdrive with their latest model. The existing coolant pumps might not be quite up to the task of cooling the new drive down properly; which meant she would have to look at designing some replacements, which would be quite a headache. Alternatively it could be that one of the pumps just needed to be overhauled. She hoped it was as that would be a lot easier as she was far enough behind on her lab work already thank you very much.
No, it wasn't the hyperdrive core temperature spike that was causing her concern. Instead, it was the odd readings that the subspace field coils – one of the most essential pieces of the whole hyperdrive assembly – were giving off. There seemed to be a very strange phase variance in the coils, it had been there ever since they'd entered hyperspace a few hours ago but it was starting to get steadily worse. Maybe the field coils are slightly out of alignment that could explain the odd phase variance and the core temperature spike, she thought punching in a series of commands remotely giving the engineering computer some instructions.
A moment later, the results came back and she scowled. According to the quick diagnostic the subspace field coils were in perfect alignment, there seemed to be no reason for the variance to be there. Hmm field coils are in alignment so what else could be causing the variance, maybe the sensors are faulty, she thought scowling at the tablet as if it would give her some answers, all the while she was wracking her brain trying to figure out what could be going on with the hyperdrive. And if the phase variance – if it really existed and it wasn't a simple sensor malfunction – presented any danger to the Odyssey, her crew and the legacy entrusted to their care by the Asgard.
She was so caught up in trying to understand that she didn't hear approaching footsteps and thus was caught completely by surprise when General Landry's voice came from behind her.
"Colonel Carter just the person I needed to see," he said as she turned to look at her superior officer. "We'll soon re-enter the Milky Way and be back within communications range of Earth. The president and the IOA are going to want to know how quickly we can recreate this new Asgard weaponry for our other ships."
"To be honest sir I haven't had a chance to look at the new weapons in any real detail," Sam replied. She could see where the president and the IOA would be coming from as one ship, no matter how advanced it was, wasn't going to be enough to win the war with the Ori not to mention they still had the Wraith and Lucian Alliance to worry about, though the latter was more an annoyance than a serious threat. "All I've been able to learn so far is the weapons, unlike previous Asgard weapons, use supercharged plasma particles focused and compressed into a laser-like energy beam. Quite how the Asgard did that I'm not sure yet. But to be honest sir I'm more concerned with our hyperdrive."
Hank frowned. "Have we taken some damage," he asked recalling how the repeated blasts from the Ori ship had shaken the Odyssey before they destroyed it. For some reason the engineers had never been able to fine tune the inertial dampeners enough to compensate for the fluctuations in a ships gravitational fields caused by weapons impacts. Hence ships shook when hit, shaking that could easily have caused some damage to the ship as it rattled circuit boards, conduits and control crystals about.
"I don't know," Sam admitted. "But the hyperdrive is running a little hotter than it should be and the sensors are spitting back some concerning readings. I think we should drop out of hyperspace and run a few diagnostics just to be on the safe side."
"Alright," Hank agreed not about to disagree with Sam about the issue. "Head back down to engineering and prepare to run diagnostics. I'll give the order to drop out of hyperspace as soon as we cross back into the Milky Way. That way if something does go wrong were not stranded between galaxies."
"Yes sir."
~~//~~
Bridge
A Few Minutes Later
"Sir we've crossed back into the Milky Way."
Hank Landry nodded at the helmswoman's report. "Very well drop us back into normal space," he ordered.
"Yes sir," the young woman acknowledged before flicking a switch on her console, instructing the hyperdrive to power down. The response was immediate. The distant background humming of the ships hyperdrive faded while beyond the view ports the shifting blue-white tunnel of the hyperspace conduit flashed and vanished. For a moment they could see nothing beyond a faint blur of colour which rapidly faded as the gravitic ion sublight engines overcame the effects of hyperspace inertia and brought the ship back down to first a safe sublight speed and then to a complete stop in space.
Satisfied Hank tapped the comm. control on the arm of his chair. "Colonel Carter we're back in normal space, begin your diagnostics," he said calmly.
"Understood sir, I'm taking the hyperdrive off line now," Carter responded from engineering.
"How long will these diagnostics take," Hank asked.
"Not long sir. Only a couple of minutes," Carter responded reassuringly. "Provided everything checks out normally we should be able to get underway again in about twenty minutes."
"Understood, inform me as soon as we're ready to get back underway."
"Yes sir."
Hank signed off and leaned back as much as the command chair would allow him to, before taking a computer tablet from a storage pocket on the side and starting to get to work on writing his report for President Hayes, General O'Neill and unfortunately the bureaucrats of the International Oversight Authority. He hated to think how Jack would react when he was told that the Asgard no longer existed as Hank was well aware that Thor had been a very good personal friend of Jack's. The other man would thus be understandably very upset when told of the Asgard's fate. While at the same time he knew the big kid in Jack would be ecstatic that they'd finally gotten their hands on the 'big honking space guns' he'd been craving for practically ever since first stepping through the Stargate. And not just 'big honking space guns' but ones capable of destroying Ori motherships.
At least they can on this ship. If we can duplicate them it remains to be seen if they'll be as effective on our other ships, he thought knowing that thanks to the ZPM the Odyssey had a much higher available energy reserve than any other Daedalus-class ship in the fleet. Which was the main reason why even before the Asgard's latest upgrades the Odyssey had had stronger shields than any ship in their infant space fleet as well as having the unique ability to cloak herself. In all probability, while they'd still be powerful, the beam cannons would likely not be quite as effective. Indeed it was likely with their more limited energy reserves other Daedalus-class vessels would have fewer beam emitters than they did, especially if they wanted to use the weapons at their full capacity. But that would be something for Carter and the other science and engineering geeks to sort out.
Mentally shaking off those thoughts Hank continued writing his initial summary and making notes for what to put in the main body of the report, what was essential and extraneous information. He was just about to start on the first paragraph of the main body when alarms abruptly went off around the bridge. Immediately he saved his work and looked up.
"Report," he ordered recognising proximity warning alarms.
"Sir, sensors show two ships dropping out of hyperspace twenty thousand kilometres astern of us," Major Marks reported. "Ori motherships, they're raising shields and powering up weapons."
Hank cursed the Ori's timing. "Shields up," he ordered.
No sooner than the order left his lips a deep, rumbling boom echoed through the ship and the Odyssey shuddered violently. Both enemy ships had opened fire, sending coruscating yellow beams of destruction smashing into the ships aft shields making them flare brilliantly with strain.
"Evasive manoeuvres," Hank ordered, "bring the energy weapons on line and return fire."
"Yes sir," the helmswoman and Major Marks both acknowledged.
~~//~~
Like a spooked rabbit the Odyssey burst into motion, her powerful and advanced gravitic ion drives – originally based on Hebridan technology but improved over the years with the addition of some Lantean tech from the Ancient database in Atlantis – accelerating her from a standstill to hundreds of meters a second in moments. Simultaneously she banked downward counting on her superior manoeuvrability to escape getting blasted.
It immediately seemed to pay dividends as the next pair of beams missed her by hundreds of meters. Immediately the aft beam turrets fired back sending a pair of beams into the bow shields of the closest mothership, dropping them by nearly twenty percent and making the ship shudder with the impact. Though startled by the damaging fire, and the fact that their ships were physically shuddering when struck, the Priors kept up their assault both ships firing their main cannons again. One beam missing its target by miles but not the other, instead it slammed into the Odyssey's dorsal shielding pushing the ship and her crew down against the plane of their own artificial gravity field.
Not giving their quarry chance to recover from the brutal hit both Ori ships fired again. Beams spearing into the Odyssey's shields making them flare brilliantly under tremendous strain. Then the smaller ship was out of the firing cone of the main guns, looping down and away. Immediately secondary pulse arrays opened fire on the impertinent Earth ship, even as the two motherships started coming around to bring their main cannons back to bear.
~~//~~
"Shields at sixty percent," Major Marks reported grimly as the rapidly tracking pulse cannons of the Ori ships secondary armaments pummelled the ship relentlessly. Even with the ZPM boosting them the Asgard shields protecting the ship were rapidly weakening under the relentless firepower, firepower that could blow even an Anubis upgraded Ha'tak to pieces in just a handful of shots.
"Colonel Carter what's the status of our hyperdrive," Hank asked into the comm. He was well aware that even with the new Asgard shields and weapons the Odyssey couldn't go up against two Ori motherships on her own for very long. For all their size and odd shape Ori motherships weren't exactly sluggish when it came to manoeuvring… a fact that was proven a second later as another searing yellow beam slammed into the shields as they came around enough for the Odyssey to come back into the firing cone of one of the motherships main cannon. Marks quickly returned the favour slamming a pair of plasma beams into the shields of the offending mothership, setting them aglow and shaking the vessel violently. Still it was another reminder that this was a battle that they wouldn't win.
"I'm bringing it back online now sir," Sam reported from engineering, a moment before the ship shuddered under another beam strike, from the same mothership. As before Marks fired back immediately the second of the two beams partially piercing the shields to scorch and pit a section of the ships forward hull.
"Minor damage to the second mothership," Marks reported a note of satisfaction in his voice that they'd at least given one of their antagonists a bloody nose. The satisfaction faded somewhat as his gaze fell on the flashing shield corrosion warnings. "Shields down to thirty percent, they won't withstand this attack much longer sir."
"Fortunately they won't have to," Hank replied as a barrage of pulsed energy bolts rattled the ship, the rapidly tracking Ori guns tagging them despite their ongoing attempts at evasion. "Get us out of here," he ordered the helmswoman.
"Yes sir stabilising flight vector, opening hyperspace window," the helmswoman acknowledged as she brought the ship back onto a steady course, thus making it much easier to jump to hyperspace, while also engaging the hyperdrive.
~~//~~
Immediately a hyperspace window burst into existence ahead of the Odyssey and the battlecruiser began advancing towards it at high speed, and the safety of hyperspace that it offered. Unfortunately for the crew the Prior's of Ori had other plans that didn't involve letting them escape, especially given the worrying battering their own ships shields had taken from their quarry's retaliatory fire. Both motherships fired… coruscating sun-yellow beams of death streaking towards the Daedalus-class vessel.
In another world, indeed in many other worlds, the beams would have missed the Odyssey by miles as she entered the hyperspace window. But not this time, not in this reality. Instead the beams caught her just as she crossed the event horizon of the hyperspace window, the beams breaking apart as they encountered the immensely powerful subspace field being generated by the hyperdrive merging with both the field and the spatial distortion of the active hyperspace window.
For a moment out of time nothing happened. Both ship and hyperspace window remained static, motionless, unchanging. Then the hyperspace window flashed and rippled with green and white light instead of its normal greenish-blue. The massive amount of unstable, destructive energy imparted by the Ori beams warping and distorting it at the very quantum level, warping it into something else.
Hundreds of tiny singularities, fissures in the very fabric of subspace, formed in the event horizon despite the best efforts of the Asgard computer core on the Odyssey to stabilise the hyperspace field and compensate for the intense energy influx. One such fissure formed inside the hyperdrive core itself, ripping the quantum structure of space-time inside the perimeter of the hyperspace field apart, instantly breaking everything aboard the ship down into its basic subatomic components in the same way a transporter beam or Stargate would for transport and pulling them into itself and out of the universe.
With a brilliant flash the hyperspace window closed, a rippling wave of subspace distortion bursting outward from where it had once been. The wave slammed into both motherships like the fist of an angry god, ripping away their shields and sending both ships tumbling end over end like flotsam in the middle of a hurricane. For several seconds the two ships tumbled, helpless to resist the forces that had gripped them, then the subspace shock wave dissipated and the somewhat space sick Priors were able to bring them back onto even keels.
Once they had their vessels back under control both Prior's scanned for the Odyssey, knowing that even if the infidel's ship had been able to make it into hyperspace they would have still picked up the energy signature of the Asgard computer core. A signature that had allowed them to track the ship all the way here from Orilla where the other three ships of their task group had met their ends. They found nothing.
Odyssey was gone.
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
Chapter Two
Somewhere,
Sometime
The system had no name, only a number and a brief description in the astronavigation database's of the various spacefaring species who knew of its existence. It deserved nothing else. It was a barren place two cold rocky worlds and a somewhat lacklustre gas giant orbited a red dwarf sun. A few small asteroid belts peppered the system between the orbits of the various planets but like the airless worlds and the gas giant they were pretty anaemic by the standards of such things, containing little more than some ice and nickel-iron left over from the systems formation.
In short it was a place where nothing happened and where no living soul had set foot in thousands of years. Until suddenly something happened that shattered the endless peace of the sun and its lifeless companions.
High above the northern pole of the gas giant a section of space the size of a quark suddenly distorted as the barrier between normal space and subspace came under tremendous stress from within. In a mere fraction of a second the warp expanded into a region nearly three kilometres in diameter. At the centre of the distortion in space-time space flexed and twisted before the folds of space-time separated and a glowing green and white aperture appeared. In an instant the aperture spread to fill the entire section of tormented space-time.
For another few timeless moments nothing happened.
Then slowly but surely a dense stream of glowing particles began to extrude from the centre of the mutated hyperspace window. The stream extended several dozen kilometres away from the centre of the distortion field before coming to a halt and beginning to form into a new shape. A shape that was initially blurred and indistinct but which as more particles arrived formed into the distinctive blocky, vaguely tri-hulled form of a Daedalus-class cruiser.
After what would have seemed like an eternity the stream of particles ceased coming from the aperture at the centre of the mutated window. Immediately, no longer able to sustain itself, the hyperspace window folded in upon itself and vanished as if it had never been present at all. As the window vanished back into the subspace ether the last of the stream of particles reached the centre of the mass.
A mass that immediately began pulsing, each pulse turning more and more of it solid. Until with a final brilliant flash of light and energy the entire ship became solid. Slowly propelled by only a small fraction of the hyperspace inertia she would normally have been exposed to, the ship drifted forward dark and nearly powerless.
Battered and bruised from the desperate battle with the Ori the Odyssey had arrived.
~~//~~
Engineering
USS Odyssey
Colonel Samantha Carter groaned softly as consciousness returned. Slowly she opened her eyes to find herself lying on the deck of the Odyssey's engineering deck, face pointed right at the newly installed Asgard computer core. Rolling onto her back she awkwardly sat up, her whole body was aching in a way that it hadn't since she'd first experienced gate travel, before her body had gotten used to the subatomic stresses of getting converted into a molecular datastream and shot down a wormhole.
What happened, she thought as she gazed around to find the engineering control room in near complete darkness, only the dull blue emergency lights functioning off built in batteries. The last thing she remembered was the ship transiting into hyperspace, and the Asgard core's screen coming alive with warnings as it suddenly detected a massive energy influx to the hyperspace window an influx from an external source. She recalled the ship abruptly shaking like it was in the grip of a force nine earthquake, throwing her and the other two people in the room to the floor. There had been a bright flash, a surge of intense pain and a feeling like she was being pulled apart, then nothing but the blackness of unconsciousness.
The Ori must have fired on us, she thought as she mentally shook off the last of the cobwebs that had formed in her mind while unconscious, the beams catching us just as we entered hyperspace. It would explain the sudden energy readings the core reported but Holy Hannah what would such an induction of unstable energy do to the hyperspace window? And its quiet here… too quiet.
A total silence filled the interior of the ship. There were none of the normal sounds that you would expect to hear aboard a starship, there was no distance thrumming of engines, none of the muffled rumbling of the power plant, the only sound being the faint, hissing swish of the ventilation systems. Alarming silence as it meant that the bulk of the ship was without power with only the most critical systems like life support and artificial gravity functioning on built in auxiliary capacitors. Capacitors that wouldn't last long given how much of a power hog both systems were.
Deciding her first job was to get some power back Sam stood up, and immediately swayed as her legs suddenly felt as though they were made of jelly. Failing her arms for balance she waited for the weakness to ease, which it did after a few moments. Staggering on somewhat shaky legs she moved over to the Asgard computer core and checked the master systems display.
It wasn't good reading.
Main power was out throughout the entire ship, the ships naquada reactor having scrammed to prevent a catastrophic overload, and the ZPM system was reading as disconnected. Meaning the circuit breakers on it have tripped, she thought recalling all the safety features Rodney had built into the ZPM cradle when he'd designed them for use on Earth ships. The normally arrogant Canadian genius being cautious when it came to interfacing such an advanced energy source with their systems, which she could well understand given even one ZPM contained power enough to vaporise a planet. Thankfully getting it back online wouldn't be too difficult she just had to go down the hall to the small room where the ZPM cradle was and flick a few switches.
No what was of more concern was the main reactor. That would take a lot more time and work to restart as they would have to check the buffers on the system for signs of damage before they even contemplated trying to bring it back online. Looks like we'll be relying on the ZPM and backup naquada generators for a while, she thought though even the ZPM on its own would provide more than enough power to run every system on the ship at full capacity. Still it wasn't a good idea to rely on it entirely for long as the Ancient power source was literally irreplaceable at this point in time. Hence why they only used it as a top up to the ships own power core.
Leaving the power systems for a moment she checked the rest of the ship. As she would have expected all propulsion systems were off line, the ship coasting forward entirely on inertia. Long range sensors and communications were also down. Weapons and shields were gone too obviously as neither could function without main power. The only good things she could see was the life signs detectors – modelled off those in Atlantis itself – showed the crew were all alive just most were unconscious and the hull appeared to be intact.
A sound behind her had her turning around. To see one of the other air men assigned to the engineering control room staggering back to his feet. The other didn't seem to be far behind as she could vaguely see someone starting to sit up by one of the other consoles. "Airman come over here and monitor the Asgard core for me," she ordered to the standing airman. "Access the power management systems, I'm going to the ZPM room. As soon as I've brought it back online direct all the energy into the ships power grid, then start bringing the main systems back online."
"Yes ma'am."
Leaving the airman to his task, Sam left the engineering control room on legs that were finally starting to feel firmer. As with the control room the corridors of the ship were dark, lit only by the dull glow of emergency lighting, but she was able to find her way as much by memory as anything else. In moments she was outside the small room that housed one of the most powerful energy sources known to man. After a quick fumble with her security swipe card she was able to access the room.
Directly in front of her was the ZPM sitting inside its docking cradle. It was dark indicating that the extremely advanced Ancient device's power management system wasn't picking up a conductive connection, which had made it go into storage mode. Status lights on the technological apparatus on the docking cradle were red indicating that the breakers had been tripped, exactly as she'd expected. Moving deeper into the room Sam went to the breakers, and after fishing in her pocket for the pen torch she kept there, began carefully checking them for damage.
"Well that's a relief," she said softly to herself as none of the breakers appeared to have been damaged at all. She just had to return the breakers to the closed position to reconnect the ZPM to the Odyssey's newly upgraded power grid. That took all of a minute and the moment she closed the last breaker circuit the ZPM lit up with its familiar warm yellow-orange light.
Immediately the overhead lights flickered once then came back to life, banishing the darkness and shadows that had filled the interior of the ship beneath a fierce bombardment of photons. Simultaneously a faint thrum of power could be heard throughout the entire ship as systems began powering back up. Sam couldn't help but blink and wince as the sudden deluge of light sent white hot needles of pain shooting down her optic nerves into her brain. Note to self; redesign the lights so they come on gradually after a loss of power so as not to dazzle people, she thought as the pain faded as her eyes finished readjusting to the brightness.
As soon as she could see properly again Sam began moving back towards the engineering control room, passing recovering crew members as she did so. Any moment now my radio's probably going to come to life with General Landry wanting to know what happened, she thought arriving back at the control room. With a nod she relieved the airman working at the Asgard core and carefully began touching the rune-like controls and moving the control stones to different points on the console, instructing the core to begin a complete and comprehensive diagnostic of all ships systems. The core chimed slightly in acknowledgement of the request and a window popped up on the screen advising that the diagnostic was underway and would take thirty minutes to complete.
Her radio chirped. "Colonel Carter," General Landry's voice said. "What happened? We were entering hyperspace and now we're here. Wherever here is as the navigational computer is not recognising these star configurations."
"My guess sir is the Ori fired on us just as we were entering hyperspace," Sam replied, "the beams must have caught us just at the moment we transited the hyperspace windows event horizon, which would explain the abnormal energy readings the Asgard core reported just before we all blacked out. I've got the core running diagnostics on all ships systems now, I should have some answers for you in just over half an hour."
"I'll be waiting," the general acknowledged before signing off. Sam sighed as the radio went dead, took one last look at the core as it went about the diagnostics, then turned and moved over to help the airman at the console that controlled the ships main naquada reactor. The least she could do while she waited was to help him get the main power core restarted so the load on the ships ZPM would be reduced back to normal levels.
~~//~~
Main Conference Room
USS Odyssey, Forty Minutes Later
"...in short the Ori energy beams striking us just as we were making the transition into hyperspace essentially caused an overload in the hyperspace window," Sam Carter explained to General Landry and the rest of SG-1. "The effect was similar to what happened a few years ago when we jumped Cronos' Ha'tak into hyperspace to escape the destruction of Vorash. Just due to the more focused nature of the Ori weapons the effect was much more intense."
"So we've been swept into another galaxy," Cam Mitchell asked, brow wrinkling as he recalled reading that particular SG-1 mission report. He hoped if that was the case here they weren't going to bump into a small army of Replicators, those techno-bugs really gave him the creeps.
"That's what I thought at first," Sam admitted, "but when the Asgard core reinitialised the navigational computer during the diagnostics it was able to get a fix on our location. We're definitely inside the Milky Way. The reason the computer couldn't originally get a fix on our location is some of the stars have… well moved."
A momentary silence fell upon the room as everyone digested what that could mean. "Have we somehow travelled in time," Daniel asked voicing everyone's fear.
Sam shook her head. "No," she said, "there are far too many differences in stellar patterns to conform with any real degree of stellar drift which we would be able to measure no matter the degree of temporal displacement."
Landry frowned. "What kind of differences," he asked, "and what's the reason for them."
"Well sir a number of star systems within range of our long range scanners are showing differences to what's in our records. For example Cimmeria is uninhabited and appears to be in the midst of an extremely severe ice age. In our reality the Asgard artificially ended that ice age a few millennia ago before they settled the Viking tribes that eventually became the Cimmerian's there," Sam took a moment to gather her breath knowing what she had to say next wasn't likely to go down very well. "The differences mixed with a one point seven megahertz variance in the quantum resonance frequency in subspace being detected by the sensors lead both myself and the Asgard core to conclude we're no longer in our own universe."
Silence greeted the announcement, but not a normal silence. Instead it was a stunned silence, one pregnant with a bizarre combination of surprise, shock, disbelief and concern. Sam took a few moments to take in everyone's facial expressions.
Teal'c was as stoic as ever but she knew the big Jaffa well enough after all this time to see the unease he was masking. Cam looked shocked, and not for the first time since joining the SGC as leader of SG-1, completely out of his depth though he was getting more to grips with the sometimes bizarre situations SG-1 could land themselves in these days. Daniel was frowning and no doubt remembering the few experiences they'd had over the years with interdimensional travel and the trouble it could sometimes cause from entropic cascade failure. Vala was also scowling and looking a little worried, no doubt recalling some Goa'uld experiences with interdimensional travel as being an ex-host she – like Sam herself – remember a lot of the knowledge of the symbiote she'd been – very unwillingly in her case – blended with. As for General Landry he seemed to be for one of the few times she'd seen him utterly stumped about what to do now.
Landry finally broke the silence. "Are you sure," he asked "could there be some other explanation for the difference in this quantum frequency?"
"No sir," Sam replied, "everything in the universe resonates at the quantum level. That resonance frequency is constant and doesn't change so for example the resonance frequency of a human is the same as the frequency of an ascended being. The only reason it would be different to ours is if we've been hurled across realities. From the degree of shift I would guess that whatever reality we are in its very different to any we've ever experienced before, those realities were only slightly different with only a point zero three to point zero four megahertz variance in the resonance frequency."
"Are we in danger," Landry asked, the technobabble going way over his head as it did most of the time. "From the mission reports I've read being in a different universe to our own for any extended period of time can be detrimental to health."
"Given the wide margin of the difference in our quantum flux to the one of the universe around us I very much doubt we're in any danger of experiencing entropic cascade failure sir," Sam answered, "in fact I would be very surprised if we have any alternate versions of ourselves present here at all."
"Do you have any idea how to get us back home," Landry asked hoping the SGC's resident genius would be able to pull yet another metaphorical rabbit out of her equally metaphorical hat to get them back to where they are supposed to be. They needed to get the technology on this ship back to Earth as without it there would be no chance of defeating the Ori as, even if the Ori themselves had been destroyed by the Sangraal, the Priors and the armies of fanatical followers were still out there, and armed with near invulnerable warships with which to conquer the galaxy. Plus there was Adria to be worried about given how she'd ascended when her corporeal body died as a result of exposure to a Goa'uld neural toxin, courtesy of one of the seemingly endless number of Ba'al clones. Clones which made the last remaining member of the once mighty Goa'uld System Lords such a pain in the ass to those trying to track him down and bring him to justice for his crimes.
"I'm afraid not sir," Sam admitted. "We would need to somehow precisely recreate the conditions that sent us here in the first place including the unique characteristics of the type of subatomic particles used in Ori beam weapons. Even if we were somehow able to duplicate a directed energy weapon whose characteristics and physics we don't even understand the basics of there is no guarantee that we'd either end up back in our own reality or that the ship would survive the passage."
"So there is no way home," Cam said his voice grim.
"Not at present and truthfully, Cam there may never be," Sam confirmed.
"So what do we do now," Cam asked trying his best not to groan at the prospect that they might never be able to go home again. For a moment he wondered if there was an Earth in this universe? And if there was would they be able to sort of link up with them as it would be home just another version of it – hopefully. He quickly said as much.
"Earth would give us a good starting point," Sam admitted after a moment or two of thoughtful silence. "Even with molecular replication device built into the Asgard core and the ZPM there is no way this ship would be able to sustain her full crew compliment for more than a few months to a year at the most. The life support systems, especially the air scrubbers, just aren't designed for that kind of strain long term."
"Yes but we don't know what Earth's like in this reality, Sam," Daniel pointed out, "if we do this we shouldn't immediately approach openly. It would be more sensible to borrow a trick from the Goa'uld's book and come out of hyperspace behind either Jupiter or Saturn. Cloak the ship and proceed to Earth at sublight."
"Danieljackson is correct," Teal'c agreed. "Without any prior knowledge of this Earth a cautious approach would be most advisable."
"Is that really necessary," Cam asked.
"The Earth in this reality won't be ours Cam, its history is almost certain to be very different to ours," Daniel reminded him. "We have no idea what condition the planet will be in when we arrive, what kind of welcome we can expect or even if there are humans actually present on the planet at all. For all we know the planet could be occupied by the Goa'uld or some other hostile alien force and the very last thing we want or need is to come out of hyperspace in orbit and be immediately fired upon."
Cam scowled. "Point," he admitted reluctantly knowing that Daniel and Teal'c were both right. After all there was no harm in being cautious about these things, when approaching an unknown planet or situation even the Goa'uld System Lords had been known to exercise a considerable degree of caution. As much as he didn't really want to admit it to them Earth in this reality could well be a very different world as alien to them as Tollana had been to their Earth before the Tollan races destruction at the hands of Anubis's minion Tanneth.
Having listened closely to the debate Hank Landry decided it was time that he spoke up as at the end of the day as acting captain of the Odyssey the decision was his to make. And his alone. That being said Doctor Jackson and Teal'c had made a very good suggestion, one that he would act upon as a little caution in the face of the unknown never hurt anyone.
"We'll head to Earth," he said at last. "I will also take the advice to come out of hyperspace behind Jupiter whereupon we'll cloak the ship and head to Earth at sublight speeds. Colonel Carter I want you to return to engineering and monitor the hyperdrive during our flight to Sol."
"Yes sir," Sam acknowledged having already expected that order. So far all the diagnostics on the hyperdrive had indicated that it was working perfectly but she watch it like a hawk for the relatively short, just a few hours at normal in galaxy cruising speed, journey to Earth, just in case there was some damage the diagnostics sweeps had missed or that odd phase imbalance and core temperature spike struck again.
"The rest of you dismissed," Hank added drawing the meeting to a close and standing up.
~~//~~
A few moments later he was strolling onto the bridge with Colonel Mitchell and Vala a few paces behind him. Teal'c having headed to his quarters after leaving the conference room no doubt to enter kal'no'reem for the journey as while the Jaffa didn't need to meditate any longer, due to the fact that he no longer carried a symbiote, Teal'c still found comfort and strength in the daily ritual that had been part of his life for several decades. Daniel had also wandered off no doubt going to the holographic reader room the Asgard had set up during the refit to continue his translation work.
"Helm set course for Jupiter and engage the hyperdrive at maximum safe cruising speed," Hank ordered as he sat back down in the command chair. "Major Marks as soon as we drop out of hyperspace at Jupiter I want you to engage the cloaking device."
"Yes sir," both the helmswoman and Major Marks acknowledged almost simultaneously. Hank leaned back in the command chair between the two officers as a faint hum of power went through the ship as the gravitic ion sublight engines came to life and gravitic pulse thrusters directed the ship out of the orbit of the gas giant that they'd been maintaining for the last hour or so, guiding them back out into open space.
For a few more moments nothing happened, the ship continuing to drive away from the planet, not that it was really necessary for them to get out of the gravity well before opening a hyperspace window. It was after all perfectly possible to jump in and out of hyperspace inside a planetary atmosphere you just had to be extremely careful doing it, especially the latter. A much louder hum of energy abruptly filled the interior of the Odyssey and in front of them space warped and distorted before the familiar aquamarine vortex of a hyperspace window generated by an Asgard drive burst into existence ahead.
Within a second the ship passed through the event horizon of the hyperspatial vortex. Space through the bridge viewports flared with brilliant light before transforming into the shimmering blue-white tunnel of a hyperspace conduit. A conduit that within a few hours would deliver the ship and every one of the two hundred odd souls aboard her into the Sol system…
…and an encounter that would change the destiny of an entire planet, and the fate of entire civilisations, forever.
Somewhere,
Sometime
The system had no name, only a number and a brief description in the astronavigation database's of the various spacefaring species who knew of its existence. It deserved nothing else. It was a barren place two cold rocky worlds and a somewhat lacklustre gas giant orbited a red dwarf sun. A few small asteroid belts peppered the system between the orbits of the various planets but like the airless worlds and the gas giant they were pretty anaemic by the standards of such things, containing little more than some ice and nickel-iron left over from the systems formation.
In short it was a place where nothing happened and where no living soul had set foot in thousands of years. Until suddenly something happened that shattered the endless peace of the sun and its lifeless companions.
High above the northern pole of the gas giant a section of space the size of a quark suddenly distorted as the barrier between normal space and subspace came under tremendous stress from within. In a mere fraction of a second the warp expanded into a region nearly three kilometres in diameter. At the centre of the distortion in space-time space flexed and twisted before the folds of space-time separated and a glowing green and white aperture appeared. In an instant the aperture spread to fill the entire section of tormented space-time.
For another few timeless moments nothing happened.
Then slowly but surely a dense stream of glowing particles began to extrude from the centre of the mutated hyperspace window. The stream extended several dozen kilometres away from the centre of the distortion field before coming to a halt and beginning to form into a new shape. A shape that was initially blurred and indistinct but which as more particles arrived formed into the distinctive blocky, vaguely tri-hulled form of a Daedalus-class cruiser.
After what would have seemed like an eternity the stream of particles ceased coming from the aperture at the centre of the mutated window. Immediately, no longer able to sustain itself, the hyperspace window folded in upon itself and vanished as if it had never been present at all. As the window vanished back into the subspace ether the last of the stream of particles reached the centre of the mass.
A mass that immediately began pulsing, each pulse turning more and more of it solid. Until with a final brilliant flash of light and energy the entire ship became solid. Slowly propelled by only a small fraction of the hyperspace inertia she would normally have been exposed to, the ship drifted forward dark and nearly powerless.
Battered and bruised from the desperate battle with the Ori the Odyssey had arrived.
~~//~~
Engineering
USS Odyssey
Colonel Samantha Carter groaned softly as consciousness returned. Slowly she opened her eyes to find herself lying on the deck of the Odyssey's engineering deck, face pointed right at the newly installed Asgard computer core. Rolling onto her back she awkwardly sat up, her whole body was aching in a way that it hadn't since she'd first experienced gate travel, before her body had gotten used to the subatomic stresses of getting converted into a molecular datastream and shot down a wormhole.
What happened, she thought as she gazed around to find the engineering control room in near complete darkness, only the dull blue emergency lights functioning off built in batteries. The last thing she remembered was the ship transiting into hyperspace, and the Asgard core's screen coming alive with warnings as it suddenly detected a massive energy influx to the hyperspace window an influx from an external source. She recalled the ship abruptly shaking like it was in the grip of a force nine earthquake, throwing her and the other two people in the room to the floor. There had been a bright flash, a surge of intense pain and a feeling like she was being pulled apart, then nothing but the blackness of unconsciousness.
The Ori must have fired on us, she thought as she mentally shook off the last of the cobwebs that had formed in her mind while unconscious, the beams catching us just as we entered hyperspace. It would explain the sudden energy readings the core reported but Holy Hannah what would such an induction of unstable energy do to the hyperspace window? And its quiet here… too quiet.
A total silence filled the interior of the ship. There were none of the normal sounds that you would expect to hear aboard a starship, there was no distance thrumming of engines, none of the muffled rumbling of the power plant, the only sound being the faint, hissing swish of the ventilation systems. Alarming silence as it meant that the bulk of the ship was without power with only the most critical systems like life support and artificial gravity functioning on built in auxiliary capacitors. Capacitors that wouldn't last long given how much of a power hog both systems were.
Deciding her first job was to get some power back Sam stood up, and immediately swayed as her legs suddenly felt as though they were made of jelly. Failing her arms for balance she waited for the weakness to ease, which it did after a few moments. Staggering on somewhat shaky legs she moved over to the Asgard computer core and checked the master systems display.
It wasn't good reading.
Main power was out throughout the entire ship, the ships naquada reactor having scrammed to prevent a catastrophic overload, and the ZPM system was reading as disconnected. Meaning the circuit breakers on it have tripped, she thought recalling all the safety features Rodney had built into the ZPM cradle when he'd designed them for use on Earth ships. The normally arrogant Canadian genius being cautious when it came to interfacing such an advanced energy source with their systems, which she could well understand given even one ZPM contained power enough to vaporise a planet. Thankfully getting it back online wouldn't be too difficult she just had to go down the hall to the small room where the ZPM cradle was and flick a few switches.
No what was of more concern was the main reactor. That would take a lot more time and work to restart as they would have to check the buffers on the system for signs of damage before they even contemplated trying to bring it back online. Looks like we'll be relying on the ZPM and backup naquada generators for a while, she thought though even the ZPM on its own would provide more than enough power to run every system on the ship at full capacity. Still it wasn't a good idea to rely on it entirely for long as the Ancient power source was literally irreplaceable at this point in time. Hence why they only used it as a top up to the ships own power core.
Leaving the power systems for a moment she checked the rest of the ship. As she would have expected all propulsion systems were off line, the ship coasting forward entirely on inertia. Long range sensors and communications were also down. Weapons and shields were gone too obviously as neither could function without main power. The only good things she could see was the life signs detectors – modelled off those in Atlantis itself – showed the crew were all alive just most were unconscious and the hull appeared to be intact.
A sound behind her had her turning around. To see one of the other air men assigned to the engineering control room staggering back to his feet. The other didn't seem to be far behind as she could vaguely see someone starting to sit up by one of the other consoles. "Airman come over here and monitor the Asgard core for me," she ordered to the standing airman. "Access the power management systems, I'm going to the ZPM room. As soon as I've brought it back online direct all the energy into the ships power grid, then start bringing the main systems back online."
"Yes ma'am."
Leaving the airman to his task, Sam left the engineering control room on legs that were finally starting to feel firmer. As with the control room the corridors of the ship were dark, lit only by the dull glow of emergency lighting, but she was able to find her way as much by memory as anything else. In moments she was outside the small room that housed one of the most powerful energy sources known to man. After a quick fumble with her security swipe card she was able to access the room.
Directly in front of her was the ZPM sitting inside its docking cradle. It was dark indicating that the extremely advanced Ancient device's power management system wasn't picking up a conductive connection, which had made it go into storage mode. Status lights on the technological apparatus on the docking cradle were red indicating that the breakers had been tripped, exactly as she'd expected. Moving deeper into the room Sam went to the breakers, and after fishing in her pocket for the pen torch she kept there, began carefully checking them for damage.
"Well that's a relief," she said softly to herself as none of the breakers appeared to have been damaged at all. She just had to return the breakers to the closed position to reconnect the ZPM to the Odyssey's newly upgraded power grid. That took all of a minute and the moment she closed the last breaker circuit the ZPM lit up with its familiar warm yellow-orange light.
Immediately the overhead lights flickered once then came back to life, banishing the darkness and shadows that had filled the interior of the ship beneath a fierce bombardment of photons. Simultaneously a faint thrum of power could be heard throughout the entire ship as systems began powering back up. Sam couldn't help but blink and wince as the sudden deluge of light sent white hot needles of pain shooting down her optic nerves into her brain. Note to self; redesign the lights so they come on gradually after a loss of power so as not to dazzle people, she thought as the pain faded as her eyes finished readjusting to the brightness.
As soon as she could see properly again Sam began moving back towards the engineering control room, passing recovering crew members as she did so. Any moment now my radio's probably going to come to life with General Landry wanting to know what happened, she thought arriving back at the control room. With a nod she relieved the airman working at the Asgard core and carefully began touching the rune-like controls and moving the control stones to different points on the console, instructing the core to begin a complete and comprehensive diagnostic of all ships systems. The core chimed slightly in acknowledgement of the request and a window popped up on the screen advising that the diagnostic was underway and would take thirty minutes to complete.
Her radio chirped. "Colonel Carter," General Landry's voice said. "What happened? We were entering hyperspace and now we're here. Wherever here is as the navigational computer is not recognising these star configurations."
"My guess sir is the Ori fired on us just as we were entering hyperspace," Sam replied, "the beams must have caught us just at the moment we transited the hyperspace windows event horizon, which would explain the abnormal energy readings the Asgard core reported just before we all blacked out. I've got the core running diagnostics on all ships systems now, I should have some answers for you in just over half an hour."
"I'll be waiting," the general acknowledged before signing off. Sam sighed as the radio went dead, took one last look at the core as it went about the diagnostics, then turned and moved over to help the airman at the console that controlled the ships main naquada reactor. The least she could do while she waited was to help him get the main power core restarted so the load on the ships ZPM would be reduced back to normal levels.
~~//~~
Main Conference Room
USS Odyssey, Forty Minutes Later
"...in short the Ori energy beams striking us just as we were making the transition into hyperspace essentially caused an overload in the hyperspace window," Sam Carter explained to General Landry and the rest of SG-1. "The effect was similar to what happened a few years ago when we jumped Cronos' Ha'tak into hyperspace to escape the destruction of Vorash. Just due to the more focused nature of the Ori weapons the effect was much more intense."
"So we've been swept into another galaxy," Cam Mitchell asked, brow wrinkling as he recalled reading that particular SG-1 mission report. He hoped if that was the case here they weren't going to bump into a small army of Replicators, those techno-bugs really gave him the creeps.
"That's what I thought at first," Sam admitted, "but when the Asgard core reinitialised the navigational computer during the diagnostics it was able to get a fix on our location. We're definitely inside the Milky Way. The reason the computer couldn't originally get a fix on our location is some of the stars have… well moved."
A momentary silence fell upon the room as everyone digested what that could mean. "Have we somehow travelled in time," Daniel asked voicing everyone's fear.
Sam shook her head. "No," she said, "there are far too many differences in stellar patterns to conform with any real degree of stellar drift which we would be able to measure no matter the degree of temporal displacement."
Landry frowned. "What kind of differences," he asked, "and what's the reason for them."
"Well sir a number of star systems within range of our long range scanners are showing differences to what's in our records. For example Cimmeria is uninhabited and appears to be in the midst of an extremely severe ice age. In our reality the Asgard artificially ended that ice age a few millennia ago before they settled the Viking tribes that eventually became the Cimmerian's there," Sam took a moment to gather her breath knowing what she had to say next wasn't likely to go down very well. "The differences mixed with a one point seven megahertz variance in the quantum resonance frequency in subspace being detected by the sensors lead both myself and the Asgard core to conclude we're no longer in our own universe."
Silence greeted the announcement, but not a normal silence. Instead it was a stunned silence, one pregnant with a bizarre combination of surprise, shock, disbelief and concern. Sam took a few moments to take in everyone's facial expressions.
Teal'c was as stoic as ever but she knew the big Jaffa well enough after all this time to see the unease he was masking. Cam looked shocked, and not for the first time since joining the SGC as leader of SG-1, completely out of his depth though he was getting more to grips with the sometimes bizarre situations SG-1 could land themselves in these days. Daniel was frowning and no doubt remembering the few experiences they'd had over the years with interdimensional travel and the trouble it could sometimes cause from entropic cascade failure. Vala was also scowling and looking a little worried, no doubt recalling some Goa'uld experiences with interdimensional travel as being an ex-host she – like Sam herself – remember a lot of the knowledge of the symbiote she'd been – very unwillingly in her case – blended with. As for General Landry he seemed to be for one of the few times she'd seen him utterly stumped about what to do now.
Landry finally broke the silence. "Are you sure," he asked "could there be some other explanation for the difference in this quantum frequency?"
"No sir," Sam replied, "everything in the universe resonates at the quantum level. That resonance frequency is constant and doesn't change so for example the resonance frequency of a human is the same as the frequency of an ascended being. The only reason it would be different to ours is if we've been hurled across realities. From the degree of shift I would guess that whatever reality we are in its very different to any we've ever experienced before, those realities were only slightly different with only a point zero three to point zero four megahertz variance in the resonance frequency."
"Are we in danger," Landry asked, the technobabble going way over his head as it did most of the time. "From the mission reports I've read being in a different universe to our own for any extended period of time can be detrimental to health."
"Given the wide margin of the difference in our quantum flux to the one of the universe around us I very much doubt we're in any danger of experiencing entropic cascade failure sir," Sam answered, "in fact I would be very surprised if we have any alternate versions of ourselves present here at all."
"Do you have any idea how to get us back home," Landry asked hoping the SGC's resident genius would be able to pull yet another metaphorical rabbit out of her equally metaphorical hat to get them back to where they are supposed to be. They needed to get the technology on this ship back to Earth as without it there would be no chance of defeating the Ori as, even if the Ori themselves had been destroyed by the Sangraal, the Priors and the armies of fanatical followers were still out there, and armed with near invulnerable warships with which to conquer the galaxy. Plus there was Adria to be worried about given how she'd ascended when her corporeal body died as a result of exposure to a Goa'uld neural toxin, courtesy of one of the seemingly endless number of Ba'al clones. Clones which made the last remaining member of the once mighty Goa'uld System Lords such a pain in the ass to those trying to track him down and bring him to justice for his crimes.
"I'm afraid not sir," Sam admitted. "We would need to somehow precisely recreate the conditions that sent us here in the first place including the unique characteristics of the type of subatomic particles used in Ori beam weapons. Even if we were somehow able to duplicate a directed energy weapon whose characteristics and physics we don't even understand the basics of there is no guarantee that we'd either end up back in our own reality or that the ship would survive the passage."
"So there is no way home," Cam said his voice grim.
"Not at present and truthfully, Cam there may never be," Sam confirmed.
"So what do we do now," Cam asked trying his best not to groan at the prospect that they might never be able to go home again. For a moment he wondered if there was an Earth in this universe? And if there was would they be able to sort of link up with them as it would be home just another version of it – hopefully. He quickly said as much.
"Earth would give us a good starting point," Sam admitted after a moment or two of thoughtful silence. "Even with molecular replication device built into the Asgard core and the ZPM there is no way this ship would be able to sustain her full crew compliment for more than a few months to a year at the most. The life support systems, especially the air scrubbers, just aren't designed for that kind of strain long term."
"Yes but we don't know what Earth's like in this reality, Sam," Daniel pointed out, "if we do this we shouldn't immediately approach openly. It would be more sensible to borrow a trick from the Goa'uld's book and come out of hyperspace behind either Jupiter or Saturn. Cloak the ship and proceed to Earth at sublight."
"Danieljackson is correct," Teal'c agreed. "Without any prior knowledge of this Earth a cautious approach would be most advisable."
"Is that really necessary," Cam asked.
"The Earth in this reality won't be ours Cam, its history is almost certain to be very different to ours," Daniel reminded him. "We have no idea what condition the planet will be in when we arrive, what kind of welcome we can expect or even if there are humans actually present on the planet at all. For all we know the planet could be occupied by the Goa'uld or some other hostile alien force and the very last thing we want or need is to come out of hyperspace in orbit and be immediately fired upon."
Cam scowled. "Point," he admitted reluctantly knowing that Daniel and Teal'c were both right. After all there was no harm in being cautious about these things, when approaching an unknown planet or situation even the Goa'uld System Lords had been known to exercise a considerable degree of caution. As much as he didn't really want to admit it to them Earth in this reality could well be a very different world as alien to them as Tollana had been to their Earth before the Tollan races destruction at the hands of Anubis's minion Tanneth.
Having listened closely to the debate Hank Landry decided it was time that he spoke up as at the end of the day as acting captain of the Odyssey the decision was his to make. And his alone. That being said Doctor Jackson and Teal'c had made a very good suggestion, one that he would act upon as a little caution in the face of the unknown never hurt anyone.
"We'll head to Earth," he said at last. "I will also take the advice to come out of hyperspace behind Jupiter whereupon we'll cloak the ship and head to Earth at sublight speeds. Colonel Carter I want you to return to engineering and monitor the hyperdrive during our flight to Sol."
"Yes sir," Sam acknowledged having already expected that order. So far all the diagnostics on the hyperdrive had indicated that it was working perfectly but she watch it like a hawk for the relatively short, just a few hours at normal in galaxy cruising speed, journey to Earth, just in case there was some damage the diagnostics sweeps had missed or that odd phase imbalance and core temperature spike struck again.
"The rest of you dismissed," Hank added drawing the meeting to a close and standing up.
~~//~~
A few moments later he was strolling onto the bridge with Colonel Mitchell and Vala a few paces behind him. Teal'c having headed to his quarters after leaving the conference room no doubt to enter kal'no'reem for the journey as while the Jaffa didn't need to meditate any longer, due to the fact that he no longer carried a symbiote, Teal'c still found comfort and strength in the daily ritual that had been part of his life for several decades. Daniel had also wandered off no doubt going to the holographic reader room the Asgard had set up during the refit to continue his translation work.
"Helm set course for Jupiter and engage the hyperdrive at maximum safe cruising speed," Hank ordered as he sat back down in the command chair. "Major Marks as soon as we drop out of hyperspace at Jupiter I want you to engage the cloaking device."
"Yes sir," both the helmswoman and Major Marks acknowledged almost simultaneously. Hank leaned back in the command chair between the two officers as a faint hum of power went through the ship as the gravitic ion sublight engines came to life and gravitic pulse thrusters directed the ship out of the orbit of the gas giant that they'd been maintaining for the last hour or so, guiding them back out into open space.
For a few more moments nothing happened, the ship continuing to drive away from the planet, not that it was really necessary for them to get out of the gravity well before opening a hyperspace window. It was after all perfectly possible to jump in and out of hyperspace inside a planetary atmosphere you just had to be extremely careful doing it, especially the latter. A much louder hum of energy abruptly filled the interior of the Odyssey and in front of them space warped and distorted before the familiar aquamarine vortex of a hyperspace window generated by an Asgard drive burst into existence ahead.
Within a second the ship passed through the event horizon of the hyperspatial vortex. Space through the bridge viewports flared with brilliant light before transforming into the shimmering blue-white tunnel of a hyperspace conduit. A conduit that within a few hours would deliver the ship and every one of the two hundred odd souls aboard her into the Sol system…
…and an encounter that would change the destiny of an entire planet, and the fate of entire civilisations, forever.
spartan303
In Captain America We Trust!
Looks interesting Andy. But who are you crossing this over with?
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
And you would be right this is crossed over with Robotech. However there will be a number of traditional Stargate elements included, for example the Goa'uld exist in this version of the robotech world just like they do in the Odyssey's home reality as do the gates themselves. So in some ways its a crossover meets a fusion fic, the idea for the combination intrigued me and I sincerely hope that people like what I've come up with.
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
Still under wraps at the moment though you will find out next chapter.
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
Chapter Three
Jupiter
Sol System, Two Hours Later
Deep within the penumbra, or shadow, of the largest of Sol's children a section of space abruptly warped and distorted as it was suddenly subjected to tremendous stress from within. The barriers that separated normal space from subspace broke down and parted allowing a hyperspace window to burst into existence with a silent scream of power.
The Odyssey emerged from the centre of the glowing rent ripped in the very fabric of space and time by the power of her hyperdrive as an indistinct blur of motion. A blur that rapidly resolved as the ships sublight engines overcame the effects of hyperspace inertia and slowed the vessel down to a more manageable and sensible speed. Behind the ship, no longer being held open by the energy emissions of the ships FTL drive, the hyperspace window folded in upon itself and vanished as it had never been present at all.
For a few moments the ship continued onwards unchanged as she raced towards the terminator that separated night from day. Then had anyone been watching they would have seen a ripple or optical distortion form and wash around the ship distorting its outlines like the shimmering waves of heat on a hot summer day. As the cloaking field finished forming the distortion faded as the Odyssey herself turned first translucent, then completely transparent before finally vanishing completely making it look to any watching eyes and sensors as if the ship had completely disappeared.
~~//~~
Bridge
USS Odyssey
"We have cleared Jupiter orbit sir and are inbound to the inner solar system," the helmswoman reported calmly. "ETA to the asteroid belt four minutes, adjusting course to go over it."
"Very good," Landry acknowledged with a smile. "How long until we reach Earth orbit?"
"At our current speed sir approximately one and a half hours."
"Understood," Hank acknowledged before thumping the intercom control on the arm of the chair. "Bridge to Engineering. Colonel Carter how did our hyperdrive perform?"
"Not too badly sir," Sam responded immediately. "We did still encounter a small spike in the hyperdrive core temperature but I think we've isolated the cause of that to one of the primary coolant line pumps. It looks like the filters have become partially clogged with some kind of contaminants that were probably jolted loose from the coolant lines during the battle in the Asgard home system. Whenever we land we're going to have to completely shut down the propulsion systems and perform a full check on all the coolant pumps as well as thoroughly flush the coolant lines."
Hank grimaced he knew enough about starship engineering to know that would be a long, and very dirty, job for the engineering crews. Especially as the materials used in the laser-chilled Boss Einstein condensate used as a drive coolant could be both explosive and toxic if handled incorrectly. They would have to completely purge it from the systems and store it in cryo-tanks before they could even begin and then there would be miles of pipes and valves to be thoroughly cleaned as any of them could be the source of whatever contaminant was in the lines and clogging the filters between the pumps and the hyperdrive core. Which was by no means an easy job and not one that could really be done in space as it would require taking the hyperdrive completely off line instead of merely powering it down.
"I see. Was the drive alright otherwise?" he asked.
"Yes sir it was," Sam confirmed. "We managed to trace the phase variance in the subspace field coils to a faulty power coupling causing momentary interruptions in the flow of power to one of the coils which manifested as a phase imbalance. The coupling must have gotten knocked loose during the battle near Orilla, after we bypassed the coupling in question the phase variance disappeared. We can replace the damaged coupling from ship stores at the same time as we work on the hyperdrive cooling system."
"Understood begin drawing up the appropriate repair plans," Hank ordered.
"Yes sir."
"Bridge out."
No sooner than he closed the channel to engineering than the sensors on Major Marks station chirped a warning. "What is it?" he asked.
"I'm not sure sir," Marks replied flicking some of his controls as he checked the sensor screens. "Sensors are picking up an intense high-energy proton discharge near Mars. Computer believes it to be weapons fire of some kind."
"Confirm that."
Marks checked his screens again and sent an interrogative command to the ships main sensor arrays which immediately scanned the area in question. "Confirmed sir its weapons fire," he reported. "Sensors now show two ships in Mars orbit. One around our size the other comparable in size to an Asgard O'Neill-class battlecruiser. The larger one is firing on the smaller ship. Smaller ship is breaking up sir."
"Life signs," Landry asked.
"Unknown life form readings on the larger ship. Human life signs on the smaller ship but they're fading rapidly," Marks replied grimly knowing what that meant. The smaller ships crew were dying probably from the break-up of their vessel and exposure to the unforgiving vacuum of space. "Sir we're now picking up a few small craft near the smaller ship and the planet. They appear to be a number of shuttles and escape pods."
"Alter course to intercept," Landry ordered the helmswoman.
"Sir the larger ship is firing on the first of the escape shuttles. Oh my God they're murdering them," Marks exclaimed. Landry hissed slightly in anger as while he didn't know who had started the battle they were obviously coming upon the end of their was no excuse for destroying shuttles and escape pods.
"How long until we're in weapons range," Hank asked.
"One minute sir," Marks reported.
"Okay switch from cloak to shields. Let's give these butchers something else to focus on instead of defenceless pods," Hank ordered. "As soon as we're within range have one of the Asgard beams fire a warning shot across the alien ships' bow. Let's see if they're willing to fight someone who can hit them back."
"Yes sir."
~~//~~
Zentraedi Battlecruiser
That Same Time
Commander Krohn sneered slightly at the disintegrating wreckage of the pathetic Micronian warship that had driven his scout team away from investigating the reflex power signal coming from the forth planet of this system. Even calling it a warship was an insult as it was small, underpowered, under gunned and its armour was pathetically weak against Zentraedi guns and compounding their idiocy the Micronian crew hadn't even bothered maintaining a proper perimeter around their vessel – an elementary beginners mistake that no Zentraedi would ever make – which had let him sneak up on them and smite them like the vermin they were.
"Commander Krohn we're picking up a number of shuttle craft rising from the disabled Micronian base on the surface of the planet," one of the crew reported. "We are also detecting a number of small escape craft leaving the wreck of the Micronian warship."
"Blast them out of the sky," he ordered with a faint sneer of contempt on his face, "we'll show these Micronian vermin the price of challenging the Zentraedi."
"It will be done."
Krohn turned his attention to the tactical hologram showing the slowly disintegrating wreck and allowed himself a small smile as he saw the first particle beams reach out and swat two of its escape pods out of the sky. Destroying the pods and evacuation shuttles would be a useful live fire exercise for his gunnery crews so it wouldn't be a complete waste of time and energy, as they'd grown out of practice during the years of searching for Zor's missing battlefortress. Once the fortress and its secrets were recovered the Zentraedi would finally be able to take the place denied to them for so long and no one – not the Robotech Masters, not the thrice damned Invid, not those Goa'uld pests who'd been periodically harassing their searching forces ever since they'd come into this galaxy; which had resulted in them having to increasingly travel in squadrons, as one on one Goa'uld warships could destroy all but the strongest Zentraedi vessels without much difficulty. Which had had the effect of slowing down their search operations considerably– would be able to stop them.
The sudden urgent bleeping of a proximity alarm caught his attention. "What is it," he asked looking over at one of his subordinates wishing not for the first time that he was high enough ranked to have a ship with a separate command blister so he wouldn't be constantly surrounded by underlings. But sadly that was the way of things, at least for now. Though now they had an idea where to concentrate their search for the battlefortress thanks to him and his crew then maybe Dolza would be generous and afford him a much larger command – maybe even one of the armada's like the one's Breetai and Azonia commanded.
"Commander, sensors show another Micronian vessel," the underling reported nervously. "It just came out on nowhere and is heading straight towards us on a clear attack vector. Its energy signature is considerably higher than the previous vessel, it's even higher than our own. Distance one thirty thousand kilometres and closing."
"What! Why didn't we detect them before now," Krohn demanded knowing they should have detected the incoming Micronian vessel much sooner than this, they were practically right on top of them.
"Unknown my lord. They may have some highly advanced form of stealth technology."
"Impossible. No micronian race beyond the Robotech Masters themselves have anywhere near the level of technology needed for something like that."
"I can offer no other explanation commander. Energy spike, we're being fired on."
Krohn's eyes narrowed as he whirled back to the tactical hologram which now showed a view of the ambushing vessel. Like the first it was small and pathetic looking but he had to give the Micronians credit for sneaking up on them so successfully. Maybe I won't destroy this ship just disable it. That stealth technology could be extremely useful to us Zentraedi, he thought a moment before the Micronians fired unleashing a strange light whitish-blue beam of energy of a kind he'd never seen in all his centuries. The beam slicing past their bow missing by a few scant meters, passing close enough for the energy wash of the beam to send a faint but noticeable tremor through the deck beneath his feet. A very clear warning shot.
He wasn't amused.
"They wish to challenge us," he said aloud. "Those insolent fools, very well we'll humour them and show them the price for challenging the Zentraedi. All forward cannons target them, fire at will."
"Yes commander."
Krohn watched the video feed that was part of the holographic tactical overlay, watching as a blizzard of blue beams shot out from his ship towards the insolent Micronian vessel. He expected to see the beams immediately scorch and render asunder the ship's hull in the same way a single barrage from their main batteries had destroyed the first ship. What happened next stunned him momentarily speechless.
Meters away from the alien vessel the particle beams abruptly stopped as if hitting an invisible wall. Almost instantly the beams broke apart into a glowing blue-white fog of energy that spread out outlining a cocoon-like force field surrounding the alien ship. A defence barrier an advanced one at that, he thought in shock as the glow faded revealing the Micronian ship. It was completely unharmed. A second and third volley of particle beams followed and again did nothing beyond create a light show as they encountered the defence barrier surrounding the Micronians. A barrier that didn't even flinch under the onslaught, it held firm firepower sufficient to tear most ships apart simply sleeting ineffectively off the barrier, dissipating in space as a luminous fog of Cherenkov radiation.
"Impossible," he breathed in shock a moment before the Micronians fired back – a pair of those odd light whitish-blue energy beams lancing out towards them.
The whole ship shook violently with the impact of the blasts, throwing Krohn to the deck. The shriek of tearing metal echoed through the ship, followed by the shudders and concussive rumblings of internal explosions. "Damage report," he screamed picking himself up off the floor having to raise his voice to be heard over the sudden screaming of damage warnings.
"Two direct his commander. Primary forward weapons arrays destroyed, forward mecha bays destroyed, long range communications array destroyed. Hull ruptured in forward compartments A3 through A19 on all forward decks. Collateral damage throughout the ship."
"All that from just two hits," Krohn breathed in shock and disbelief. Not even the Robotech Masters could inflict that much damage to a Zentraedi warship with just two beam strikes and their weapons were far more powerful than anything issued to the Zentraedi, well aside from the reflex cannon armed ships that could only be deployed under direct orders from Dolza himself. After a moment he shook off his shock and glared at the Micronian ship, knowing full well he could not allow this level of damage to go unanswered.
"Do we have any weapons left at all?" he asked his subordinates. While there were some Zentraedi commanders who would back off after their ships sustained the kind of damage his had taken, falling back to summon reinforcements, he wasn't one of them. To withdraw from a fight after battle had begun was the height of cowardice in his opinion and thus not the way of a true Zentraedi warrior.
"Yes commander secondary forward guns are still functional and can target the Micronian ship."
"Then do so. Fire when ready."
"Yes commander."
Krohn watched the hologram again as another, much smaller, but still potent enough to tear apart a ship that small, barrage of particle beams shot towards the alien ship. Somehow he wasn't surprised when the beams did nothing but once more produce nothing but a pretty light show of refracting energy and Cherenkov radiation as the Micronian shields held. Even before the glow faded the Micronian ship again showed just how advanced it was by firing back – right through its own defence barrier something only the Masters mighty Azashar-class motherships could do – sending two more of the deadly beams right towards them.
The ship quaked violently, once again throwing Krohn to the deck. Something exploded nearby prompting him to instinctively curl up into a ball, covering his head with his arms to protect it from a sudden hail of white hot shrapnel. Another blast shook the ship and Krohn found himself lifted into the air as the ships artificial gravity field momentarily failed, before slamming back down with breath taking force. A forth blast struck shaking the ship with unbelievable force seconds later a deep rumbling began to fill the ship, the deck began shaking more and more until it felt like his very teeth were vibrating.
Instinctively Krohn knew what was happening. Knew that that last beam had ripped open the ships engineering bay; as a result the ships reflex furnaces were beginning to implode, in moments he, his crew and his ship would be reduced to radioactive dust blowing in the stellar winds. Still he felt no sorrow, did not rage at fate. It would be a good death, a warrior's death, one worthy of a true Zentraedi. Well met Micronians, well met, he thought standing up despite the shaking. Proud and defiant to the end, the very picture of what a Zentraedi should be. Then he closed his eyes and smiled…
…as around him the command centre dissolved into screams and fiery fragments.
~~//~~
Bridge
USS Odyssey
Hank Landry shielded his eyes with his forearm as through the viewports the alien warship disintegrated in a massive explosion that for a few moments seemed to rip the very fabric of space apart. Slowly the explosion cooled and dissipated revealing nothing left of the vessel beyond an immense, spreading cloud of irradiated dust and a few pieces of half molten debris most of it scarcely bigger than a playing card.
He really hadn't wanted to do that. Hadn't wanted to order Marks to blow the alien warship to irradiated space dust. He'd hoped that once the aliens saw their weapons - while nothing to sneer at, indeed if the sensors were correct the beams rivalled Wraith weapons for sheer power – couldn't penetrate the ZPM boosted Asgard shields of the Odyssey; while their own plasma beam weapons could cut through their armour in seconds, that they'd realise they were overmatched and leave. Sadly whoever they were the aliens seemed to have a streak of pride and stubbornness to match the Jaffa at their worst. They'd continued to attack, shaving off five percent of their shield strength in the process, leaving him no option but to destroy them.
"Sir," communications reported breaking the brief silence that had fallen on the bridge following the destruction of the alien warship. "We're receiving a tight beam audio visual transmission from what appears to be a base on the surface of Mars. Someone called Colonel Rodriguez wants to speak with you."
"Well we have just kind of introduced ourselves in a very spectacular style," Cam pointed out with a faint grin. "So much for keeping a low profile."
"Indeed," Landry deadpanned back in such an eerie impersonation of a certain Jaffa Master that the younger officer couldn't help but chuckle. He couldn't help but chuckle back before getting himself under control. "Put the transmission through. Route it to the holographic display."
"Yes sir."
Once again the holographic HUD in front of the viewport came to life but this time instead of bringing up a tactical display it opened a communications screen. A screen showing the face and shoulders of a man who appeared to be in his mid-forties wearing a pair of glasses that wouldn't look out of place on Daniel Jackson's face and a military cap that looked almost naval. The colonel's insignia on his collar was plane to see. He spoke immediately. "I don't know who you are or where you came from but thank you," Colonel Rodriguez said. "If you hadn't destroyed the aliens they would have shot down all our evacuation shuttles and the escape pods from the Oberth."
"Colonel Rodriguez my name is General Hank Landry commanding officer of the Odyssey," Hank replied and saw the other man's eyes widen in surprise at the fact that he a) spoke English, b) spoke with an American accent and c) had a very American name. He probably thought I was going to be another alien, he thought. "As for where we come from that's a very long, very complicated story that's best explained face to face. And you are most welcome. Can we be of further assistance?"
"I look forward to hearing it, sir," Rodriguez answered. "And I'm afraid we do need your help. Sara Base is dying, the aliens took out our life support and defence systems with their first shots. I hate to impose but is it possible for you to give us transport back to Earth as our shuttles can't make the voyage and we have no other ships in this area."
"I believe we can how many people are we looking at?" Hank asked knowing that answer would be the important one as the Odyssey's life support systems could only support so many for so long, though they could probably get away with some overcrowding this time given Earth was only just over an hour away at maximum sublight.
"Most of our people were already aboard the Oberth when she was destroyed," Rodriguez answered a look of pain and grief flashing across his face as he thought of all the scientists and fellow soldiers the aliens had murdered when they destroyed the Oberth. "Between the shuttles, the escape pods and the last of us down here we're looking at around eighty people."
"We can easily handle that many additional people on board," Hank replied knowing that the Daedalus-class vessels had been designed to handle up to twice their crew complement before the life support systems were maxed out. Eighty survivors from the base and the destroyed ship, the Oberth as Rodriguez had called it, on top of the current crew of two hundred would hardly be noticed by the life support system. At least in the short to medium term.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. We'll begin bringing your people aboard immediately."
"Again thank you but might I suggest you begin with the escape pods from the Oberth. It's only myself and Mr Riber left down here and we can manage with environmental suits until you can come down and get us."
Hank smiled slightly. "That won't be necessary I will see you in a few moments, Colonel," he said before indicating to communications to close the comm. link down. "Major Marks scan the base and then transport Colonel Rodriguez and this Mr Riber straight here to the bridge. Once they're aboard start transporting the people off the escape pods and shuttles, place them in one of the cargo holds. And have medical personnel meet them there."
"Yes sir," Marks confirmed before accessing the primary sensor array and scanning the base on the surface of Mars. Despite the fact that the plant the generated fresh air and recycled water for the base had been destroyed, the damage pattern indicative of a direct strike to the heart of the plant, the facility was still largely intact. He couldn't help but be impressed by both its size and sheer complexity in many ways it was far superior to any of the off world facilities they'd built themselves as they'd never had to contend with an environment as hostile to life, in any form, as Mars was.
A powerful energy source, roughly equivalent to the power output of their own main naquada reactor, appeared on the scan towards the centre and beneath the base. Its output was declining, presumably because it was being automatically powered down, but he could see enough to know it wasn't like any energy source they'd ever encountered before. Continuing with his scans he finally noticed two human life signs in what appeared to be an annex to the command centre. He quickly locked onto them with the transport sensors before lowering the shields and remotely activating the transporter.
Hank allowed himself a small smile as the familiar musical tone of an Asgard transporter beam activating filled the bridge and with the usual flash of silver-white light two individuals, both wearing what were clearly environmental suits of some kind and holding helmets in their hands, materialised right in front of the viewport. As soon as the beam released them both men began looking around in shock.
"Colonel Rodriguez, Mister Riber welcome to the Odyssey," he said in greeting.
"Unbelievable," the one he didn't immediately recognise, who he assumed to be Riber, breathed as he realised just what had happened. "Near instantaneous matter-energy transport, incredible. How the hell did you do that? The Heisenberg uncertainty principle should make such teleportation a scientific impossibility."
"Riber stow the interrogation please," the other man, who Hank recognised at Rodriguez, said sounding amused. "We can ask such questions later. For now let's just be grateful that we're alive, okay?"
With an obvious reluctance, the reluctance of a scientist whose mind was demanding answers to something he'd experienced, Riber nodded. Hank made a mental note to send him down to talk to Colonel Carter later, but be far away when they really started talking in scientist. That kind of rapid fire technobabble tended to give him a headache real quickly, which was one of the reasons why both Colonel Carter and Dr Lee had learned to be as clear as possible when giving briefings on various subjects relating to the Stargate or to starship engineering.
Satisfied that Karl Riber was cowed into silence for now, though he would admit he too was curious about the transporter beam, alongside the incredibly powerful beam weapons and the defensive energy shield this ship seemed to have, Colonel Rodriguez turned to access their host. The man sitting in what was clearly the command chair held himself like a career soldier and a skilled leader of men. He of course immediately recognised the uniform as being the uniform of a US Air Force Major General and now that he thought about it the entire bridge crew he could see were wearing USAF uniforms. Which didn't make sense as the USAF like all the other of the world's militaries had been absorbed into the United Earth Defence Forces after the end of the Global Civil War.
It was just one of many mysteries posed by this ship.
The Odyssey's very existence was a mystery as was its power source as while the sensors on Sara Base hadn't been able to fully penetrate the ships shields, they had gathered some information. Enough to know that whatever powered this ship it wasn't a reflex furnace, fusion reactor or even a hybrid fusion-fission reactor like on their own ships, the energy signature they'd been able to detect was completely unknown. Put whatever it was its output was phenomenal, completely off the scale as far as their instruments had been concerned. One thing was sure wherever this ship had come from, and however a bunch of personnel from an armed force that no longer existed had gotten their hands on it, it was bound to be an interesting story. What would be even more interesting is if they could get them to share the technology, especially the shield tech, as it would go a long way towards helping them protect Earth when the aliens came in force.
He decided that he might as well start trying to get some answers to those questions. "General forgive me for seeming to be ungrateful but where did members of a military force that hasn't existed for five years get a ship this advanced," he asked.
"As I said Colonel it's a very long, complex and crazy sounding story," Hank replied not really that surprised that the other man wanted some answers. If their positions were reversed he'd be wanting answers as well. "We're not aliens or anything like that, we're human just like you are – well most of us Teal'c is a Jaffa an offshoot of humans genetically engineered by a species called the Goa'uld thousands of years ago."
"Jaffa, Goa'uld what are those," Rodriguez asked curious.
"I'm not sure if they exist here one way to know is are they're pyramids here?"
"Pyramids as in Egyptian pyramids," Riber queried, when Hank nodded he continued. "Yes there are but what do they have to do with the Goa'uld?"
"Where we're from the pyramids are the remains of landing pedestals for Goa'uld Cheops and Ha'tak-class motherships."
"Where you're from?" Rodriquez asked "are you from some sort of parallel world or something." He blinked. "You are aren't you?"
"Yes," Hank confirmed. "In our reality the Goa'uld came to Earth eight thousand years ago and began taking humans from the various cultures of the Ancient World and seeding them among the stars to serve them. Most became slaves, some were biogenetically and biochemically altered to become Jaffa a race of soldiers and living incubators for Goa'uld young, the most unfortunate ones became hosts for the Goa'uld themselves."
"Hosts," Rodriquez repeated the nuances conjured up by the word sending a shiver of horror down his spine, if this General Landry meant what he thought he meant. "I take it these Goa'uld are parasites of some kind?"
"They are," Vala said breaking in shivering as she remembered her own possession by Qetesh. "The natural form of a Goa'uld is a snake-like aquatic creature, however they can burrow into a host – usually a human but they can use other species as well. One there they wrap themselves around the spinal cord and hijack control of the voluntary nervous system. I know from experience what it's like to be a host as I was host to a System Lord named Qetesh for fifty years until an enemy of the Goa'uld captured Qetesh and removed her from my body.
"It's a horrible experience," Vala continued, "it's a terror beyond description to be trapped in the very deepest, darkest part of your mind your aware of everything the Goa'uld does. Every murder, every act of evil perpetuated as the Goa'uld are evil and demand all worship them as gods and torture or kill all who do not." Her voice trailed off and she looked down shivering against the memories that haunted her to this day, memories that would haunt her until the day she died. After a moment she felt a comforting hand touch her shoulder and knew it was Cam giving what support he could though he could never truly understand how she felt, the only one on board who really could was Sam but even her experience was different given she'd been the temporary host of the Tok'ra Jolinar.
"That sounds… unpleasant," Rodriquez said unable to suppress a shudder at the very thought of such a ghastly fate and feeling more than a twinge of sympathy for the woman who'd been forced to endure such an unthinkable horror. The terror and helplessness she'd experienced didn't bear thinking about. He suddenly hoped that these Goa'uld didn't exist here but he had a very, very horrible suspicion that they did. As if we didn't have enough to worry about with those alien giants who built the SDF-1, he thought, now there is the potential for these megalomaniacal parasites to be out there as well. Yeech.
A quick glance at Riber showed the younger, and much more naive, man looked like he wanted to be sick at the very thought of such an evil species existing. Riber so wanted to believe that a technologically advanced species would be benign and advanced beyond violence when that was very unlikely to ever be the case. The aliens who'd just attacked Sara Base without warning or provocation was proof of that. He couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for him.
A chirp from one of the consoles brought Rodriguez out of his thoughts just as one of the crew spoke up. "Sir the last of the survivors have been transported aboard," the man to Landry's left said. "They're all in cargo bay six, Doctor Lam has set up triage facilities to care for the wounded."
"Thank you major," Hank acknowledged Marks. "Helm bring us about and resume course to Earth, maximum sublight."
"Yes sir," the helmswoman acknowledged.
"How long will it take us to reach Earth," Riber asked feeling more than a little glee at the thought that, regardless of the circumstances that had led to their long overdue reunion, he'd soon get to see his beloved Lisa again.
"At maximum sublight an hour to an hour and a half," Hank replied.
"Whoa what propels this ship," Riber asked shocked at the implied speed of this vessel. To make the journey to Earth in such a short space of time at sublight whatever propelled the Odyssey had to accelerate her to a significant percentage of the speed of light. Oh how the engineer and scientist in him would love to get a look at the innards of such a propulsion system. "Our own fusion engines take months to make the trip. Your sublight engines must be incredibly advanced to make the journey so quickly, how do you compensate for the gee forces?"
"Inertial dampeners. As for how the sublight drives work all in good time Mr Riber all in good time," Hank answered, smiling in amusement and deciding he'd send the younger man down to engineering to have a chat with Colonel Carter while he talked some more with Colonel Rodriguez. "Now Colonel Rodriguez why don't we retire to the briefing room. I believe we have a few more things to talk about before we reach Earth. Mr Riber Colonel Mitchell will escort you down to engineering where I'm sure Colonel Carter will be able to answer your questions."
"Agreed," Rodriquez answered, unable to suppress a smile as he saw Riber almost bounce in excitement about talking to this Colonel Carter about some of the Odyssey's technology. Hmm methinks Lisa Hayes is going to find herself with some competition especially if this Colonel Carter is physically attractive, he thought knowing full well how Karl Riber and Lisa Hayes felt about each other. It had been the worst kept secret on Sara Base that Riber loved and intended to marry Admiral Hayes' only child when he returned to Earth.
"Major Marks the conns yours," Hank said standing up from the command chair.
"Yes sir," Marks acknowledged.
"This way, Colonel," Hank indicated leading the way off the bridge, Rodriguez following a few paces behind him both knowing that they had a great deal to talk about in the time it would take for this ship to reach Earth orbit. Many decisions to make.
Decisions that, though neither knew it, could have a drastic effect on the galaxy's future.
~~//~~
Authors Notes: Well there's another chapter of this fic up for you all to read. In the Robotech timeline events take place in the year 2005 and follow the chronology established in the Mars Base One sections of the Invasion comic.
I should also point out that while this is primarily a robotech world it isn't completely the same as canon robotech but has some stargate elements present like the Goa'uld though they won't be playing a major role - yet anyway - so in that regard this is as much a fusion fic as it is a crossover. I hope nobody minds too much and I hope people are comfortable with the implied power levels.
This is probably going to be the last update of this fic for a bit as while I do have some more chapters completed I want to give some of my other work a bit of attention - especially Second Chances, Pioneers Dawn and possibly Destiny's Child: The Reboot as well.
Jupiter
Sol System, Two Hours Later
Deep within the penumbra, or shadow, of the largest of Sol's children a section of space abruptly warped and distorted as it was suddenly subjected to tremendous stress from within. The barriers that separated normal space from subspace broke down and parted allowing a hyperspace window to burst into existence with a silent scream of power.
The Odyssey emerged from the centre of the glowing rent ripped in the very fabric of space and time by the power of her hyperdrive as an indistinct blur of motion. A blur that rapidly resolved as the ships sublight engines overcame the effects of hyperspace inertia and slowed the vessel down to a more manageable and sensible speed. Behind the ship, no longer being held open by the energy emissions of the ships FTL drive, the hyperspace window folded in upon itself and vanished as it had never been present at all.
For a few moments the ship continued onwards unchanged as she raced towards the terminator that separated night from day. Then had anyone been watching they would have seen a ripple or optical distortion form and wash around the ship distorting its outlines like the shimmering waves of heat on a hot summer day. As the cloaking field finished forming the distortion faded as the Odyssey herself turned first translucent, then completely transparent before finally vanishing completely making it look to any watching eyes and sensors as if the ship had completely disappeared.
~~//~~
Bridge
USS Odyssey
"We have cleared Jupiter orbit sir and are inbound to the inner solar system," the helmswoman reported calmly. "ETA to the asteroid belt four minutes, adjusting course to go over it."
"Very good," Landry acknowledged with a smile. "How long until we reach Earth orbit?"
"At our current speed sir approximately one and a half hours."
"Understood," Hank acknowledged before thumping the intercom control on the arm of the chair. "Bridge to Engineering. Colonel Carter how did our hyperdrive perform?"
"Not too badly sir," Sam responded immediately. "We did still encounter a small spike in the hyperdrive core temperature but I think we've isolated the cause of that to one of the primary coolant line pumps. It looks like the filters have become partially clogged with some kind of contaminants that were probably jolted loose from the coolant lines during the battle in the Asgard home system. Whenever we land we're going to have to completely shut down the propulsion systems and perform a full check on all the coolant pumps as well as thoroughly flush the coolant lines."
Hank grimaced he knew enough about starship engineering to know that would be a long, and very dirty, job for the engineering crews. Especially as the materials used in the laser-chilled Boss Einstein condensate used as a drive coolant could be both explosive and toxic if handled incorrectly. They would have to completely purge it from the systems and store it in cryo-tanks before they could even begin and then there would be miles of pipes and valves to be thoroughly cleaned as any of them could be the source of whatever contaminant was in the lines and clogging the filters between the pumps and the hyperdrive core. Which was by no means an easy job and not one that could really be done in space as it would require taking the hyperdrive completely off line instead of merely powering it down.
"I see. Was the drive alright otherwise?" he asked.
"Yes sir it was," Sam confirmed. "We managed to trace the phase variance in the subspace field coils to a faulty power coupling causing momentary interruptions in the flow of power to one of the coils which manifested as a phase imbalance. The coupling must have gotten knocked loose during the battle near Orilla, after we bypassed the coupling in question the phase variance disappeared. We can replace the damaged coupling from ship stores at the same time as we work on the hyperdrive cooling system."
"Understood begin drawing up the appropriate repair plans," Hank ordered.
"Yes sir."
"Bridge out."
No sooner than he closed the channel to engineering than the sensors on Major Marks station chirped a warning. "What is it?" he asked.
"I'm not sure sir," Marks replied flicking some of his controls as he checked the sensor screens. "Sensors are picking up an intense high-energy proton discharge near Mars. Computer believes it to be weapons fire of some kind."
"Confirm that."
Marks checked his screens again and sent an interrogative command to the ships main sensor arrays which immediately scanned the area in question. "Confirmed sir its weapons fire," he reported. "Sensors now show two ships in Mars orbit. One around our size the other comparable in size to an Asgard O'Neill-class battlecruiser. The larger one is firing on the smaller ship. Smaller ship is breaking up sir."
"Life signs," Landry asked.
"Unknown life form readings on the larger ship. Human life signs on the smaller ship but they're fading rapidly," Marks replied grimly knowing what that meant. The smaller ships crew were dying probably from the break-up of their vessel and exposure to the unforgiving vacuum of space. "Sir we're now picking up a few small craft near the smaller ship and the planet. They appear to be a number of shuttles and escape pods."
"Alter course to intercept," Landry ordered the helmswoman.
"Sir the larger ship is firing on the first of the escape shuttles. Oh my God they're murdering them," Marks exclaimed. Landry hissed slightly in anger as while he didn't know who had started the battle they were obviously coming upon the end of their was no excuse for destroying shuttles and escape pods.
"How long until we're in weapons range," Hank asked.
"One minute sir," Marks reported.
"Okay switch from cloak to shields. Let's give these butchers something else to focus on instead of defenceless pods," Hank ordered. "As soon as we're within range have one of the Asgard beams fire a warning shot across the alien ships' bow. Let's see if they're willing to fight someone who can hit them back."
"Yes sir."
~~//~~
Zentraedi Battlecruiser
That Same Time
Commander Krohn sneered slightly at the disintegrating wreckage of the pathetic Micronian warship that had driven his scout team away from investigating the reflex power signal coming from the forth planet of this system. Even calling it a warship was an insult as it was small, underpowered, under gunned and its armour was pathetically weak against Zentraedi guns and compounding their idiocy the Micronian crew hadn't even bothered maintaining a proper perimeter around their vessel – an elementary beginners mistake that no Zentraedi would ever make – which had let him sneak up on them and smite them like the vermin they were.
"Commander Krohn we're picking up a number of shuttle craft rising from the disabled Micronian base on the surface of the planet," one of the crew reported. "We are also detecting a number of small escape craft leaving the wreck of the Micronian warship."
"Blast them out of the sky," he ordered with a faint sneer of contempt on his face, "we'll show these Micronian vermin the price of challenging the Zentraedi."
"It will be done."
Krohn turned his attention to the tactical hologram showing the slowly disintegrating wreck and allowed himself a small smile as he saw the first particle beams reach out and swat two of its escape pods out of the sky. Destroying the pods and evacuation shuttles would be a useful live fire exercise for his gunnery crews so it wouldn't be a complete waste of time and energy, as they'd grown out of practice during the years of searching for Zor's missing battlefortress. Once the fortress and its secrets were recovered the Zentraedi would finally be able to take the place denied to them for so long and no one – not the Robotech Masters, not the thrice damned Invid, not those Goa'uld pests who'd been periodically harassing their searching forces ever since they'd come into this galaxy; which had resulted in them having to increasingly travel in squadrons, as one on one Goa'uld warships could destroy all but the strongest Zentraedi vessels without much difficulty. Which had had the effect of slowing down their search operations considerably– would be able to stop them.
The sudden urgent bleeping of a proximity alarm caught his attention. "What is it," he asked looking over at one of his subordinates wishing not for the first time that he was high enough ranked to have a ship with a separate command blister so he wouldn't be constantly surrounded by underlings. But sadly that was the way of things, at least for now. Though now they had an idea where to concentrate their search for the battlefortress thanks to him and his crew then maybe Dolza would be generous and afford him a much larger command – maybe even one of the armada's like the one's Breetai and Azonia commanded.
"Commander, sensors show another Micronian vessel," the underling reported nervously. "It just came out on nowhere and is heading straight towards us on a clear attack vector. Its energy signature is considerably higher than the previous vessel, it's even higher than our own. Distance one thirty thousand kilometres and closing."
"What! Why didn't we detect them before now," Krohn demanded knowing they should have detected the incoming Micronian vessel much sooner than this, they were practically right on top of them.
"Unknown my lord. They may have some highly advanced form of stealth technology."
"Impossible. No micronian race beyond the Robotech Masters themselves have anywhere near the level of technology needed for something like that."
"I can offer no other explanation commander. Energy spike, we're being fired on."
Krohn's eyes narrowed as he whirled back to the tactical hologram which now showed a view of the ambushing vessel. Like the first it was small and pathetic looking but he had to give the Micronians credit for sneaking up on them so successfully. Maybe I won't destroy this ship just disable it. That stealth technology could be extremely useful to us Zentraedi, he thought a moment before the Micronians fired unleashing a strange light whitish-blue beam of energy of a kind he'd never seen in all his centuries. The beam slicing past their bow missing by a few scant meters, passing close enough for the energy wash of the beam to send a faint but noticeable tremor through the deck beneath his feet. A very clear warning shot.
He wasn't amused.
"They wish to challenge us," he said aloud. "Those insolent fools, very well we'll humour them and show them the price for challenging the Zentraedi. All forward cannons target them, fire at will."
"Yes commander."
Krohn watched the video feed that was part of the holographic tactical overlay, watching as a blizzard of blue beams shot out from his ship towards the insolent Micronian vessel. He expected to see the beams immediately scorch and render asunder the ship's hull in the same way a single barrage from their main batteries had destroyed the first ship. What happened next stunned him momentarily speechless.
Meters away from the alien vessel the particle beams abruptly stopped as if hitting an invisible wall. Almost instantly the beams broke apart into a glowing blue-white fog of energy that spread out outlining a cocoon-like force field surrounding the alien ship. A defence barrier an advanced one at that, he thought in shock as the glow faded revealing the Micronian ship. It was completely unharmed. A second and third volley of particle beams followed and again did nothing beyond create a light show as they encountered the defence barrier surrounding the Micronians. A barrier that didn't even flinch under the onslaught, it held firm firepower sufficient to tear most ships apart simply sleeting ineffectively off the barrier, dissipating in space as a luminous fog of Cherenkov radiation.
"Impossible," he breathed in shock a moment before the Micronians fired back – a pair of those odd light whitish-blue energy beams lancing out towards them.
The whole ship shook violently with the impact of the blasts, throwing Krohn to the deck. The shriek of tearing metal echoed through the ship, followed by the shudders and concussive rumblings of internal explosions. "Damage report," he screamed picking himself up off the floor having to raise his voice to be heard over the sudden screaming of damage warnings.
"Two direct his commander. Primary forward weapons arrays destroyed, forward mecha bays destroyed, long range communications array destroyed. Hull ruptured in forward compartments A3 through A19 on all forward decks. Collateral damage throughout the ship."
"All that from just two hits," Krohn breathed in shock and disbelief. Not even the Robotech Masters could inflict that much damage to a Zentraedi warship with just two beam strikes and their weapons were far more powerful than anything issued to the Zentraedi, well aside from the reflex cannon armed ships that could only be deployed under direct orders from Dolza himself. After a moment he shook off his shock and glared at the Micronian ship, knowing full well he could not allow this level of damage to go unanswered.
"Do we have any weapons left at all?" he asked his subordinates. While there were some Zentraedi commanders who would back off after their ships sustained the kind of damage his had taken, falling back to summon reinforcements, he wasn't one of them. To withdraw from a fight after battle had begun was the height of cowardice in his opinion and thus not the way of a true Zentraedi warrior.
"Yes commander secondary forward guns are still functional and can target the Micronian ship."
"Then do so. Fire when ready."
"Yes commander."
Krohn watched the hologram again as another, much smaller, but still potent enough to tear apart a ship that small, barrage of particle beams shot towards the alien ship. Somehow he wasn't surprised when the beams did nothing but once more produce nothing but a pretty light show of refracting energy and Cherenkov radiation as the Micronian shields held. Even before the glow faded the Micronian ship again showed just how advanced it was by firing back – right through its own defence barrier something only the Masters mighty Azashar-class motherships could do – sending two more of the deadly beams right towards them.
The ship quaked violently, once again throwing Krohn to the deck. Something exploded nearby prompting him to instinctively curl up into a ball, covering his head with his arms to protect it from a sudden hail of white hot shrapnel. Another blast shook the ship and Krohn found himself lifted into the air as the ships artificial gravity field momentarily failed, before slamming back down with breath taking force. A forth blast struck shaking the ship with unbelievable force seconds later a deep rumbling began to fill the ship, the deck began shaking more and more until it felt like his very teeth were vibrating.
Instinctively Krohn knew what was happening. Knew that that last beam had ripped open the ships engineering bay; as a result the ships reflex furnaces were beginning to implode, in moments he, his crew and his ship would be reduced to radioactive dust blowing in the stellar winds. Still he felt no sorrow, did not rage at fate. It would be a good death, a warrior's death, one worthy of a true Zentraedi. Well met Micronians, well met, he thought standing up despite the shaking. Proud and defiant to the end, the very picture of what a Zentraedi should be. Then he closed his eyes and smiled…
…as around him the command centre dissolved into screams and fiery fragments.
~~//~~
Bridge
USS Odyssey
Hank Landry shielded his eyes with his forearm as through the viewports the alien warship disintegrated in a massive explosion that for a few moments seemed to rip the very fabric of space apart. Slowly the explosion cooled and dissipated revealing nothing left of the vessel beyond an immense, spreading cloud of irradiated dust and a few pieces of half molten debris most of it scarcely bigger than a playing card.
He really hadn't wanted to do that. Hadn't wanted to order Marks to blow the alien warship to irradiated space dust. He'd hoped that once the aliens saw their weapons - while nothing to sneer at, indeed if the sensors were correct the beams rivalled Wraith weapons for sheer power – couldn't penetrate the ZPM boosted Asgard shields of the Odyssey; while their own plasma beam weapons could cut through their armour in seconds, that they'd realise they were overmatched and leave. Sadly whoever they were the aliens seemed to have a streak of pride and stubbornness to match the Jaffa at their worst. They'd continued to attack, shaving off five percent of their shield strength in the process, leaving him no option but to destroy them.
"Sir," communications reported breaking the brief silence that had fallen on the bridge following the destruction of the alien warship. "We're receiving a tight beam audio visual transmission from what appears to be a base on the surface of Mars. Someone called Colonel Rodriguez wants to speak with you."
"Well we have just kind of introduced ourselves in a very spectacular style," Cam pointed out with a faint grin. "So much for keeping a low profile."
"Indeed," Landry deadpanned back in such an eerie impersonation of a certain Jaffa Master that the younger officer couldn't help but chuckle. He couldn't help but chuckle back before getting himself under control. "Put the transmission through. Route it to the holographic display."
"Yes sir."
Once again the holographic HUD in front of the viewport came to life but this time instead of bringing up a tactical display it opened a communications screen. A screen showing the face and shoulders of a man who appeared to be in his mid-forties wearing a pair of glasses that wouldn't look out of place on Daniel Jackson's face and a military cap that looked almost naval. The colonel's insignia on his collar was plane to see. He spoke immediately. "I don't know who you are or where you came from but thank you," Colonel Rodriguez said. "If you hadn't destroyed the aliens they would have shot down all our evacuation shuttles and the escape pods from the Oberth."
"Colonel Rodriguez my name is General Hank Landry commanding officer of the Odyssey," Hank replied and saw the other man's eyes widen in surprise at the fact that he a) spoke English, b) spoke with an American accent and c) had a very American name. He probably thought I was going to be another alien, he thought. "As for where we come from that's a very long, very complicated story that's best explained face to face. And you are most welcome. Can we be of further assistance?"
"I look forward to hearing it, sir," Rodriguez answered. "And I'm afraid we do need your help. Sara Base is dying, the aliens took out our life support and defence systems with their first shots. I hate to impose but is it possible for you to give us transport back to Earth as our shuttles can't make the voyage and we have no other ships in this area."
"I believe we can how many people are we looking at?" Hank asked knowing that answer would be the important one as the Odyssey's life support systems could only support so many for so long, though they could probably get away with some overcrowding this time given Earth was only just over an hour away at maximum sublight.
"Most of our people were already aboard the Oberth when she was destroyed," Rodriguez answered a look of pain and grief flashing across his face as he thought of all the scientists and fellow soldiers the aliens had murdered when they destroyed the Oberth. "Between the shuttles, the escape pods and the last of us down here we're looking at around eighty people."
"We can easily handle that many additional people on board," Hank replied knowing that the Daedalus-class vessels had been designed to handle up to twice their crew complement before the life support systems were maxed out. Eighty survivors from the base and the destroyed ship, the Oberth as Rodriguez had called it, on top of the current crew of two hundred would hardly be noticed by the life support system. At least in the short to medium term.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome. We'll begin bringing your people aboard immediately."
"Again thank you but might I suggest you begin with the escape pods from the Oberth. It's only myself and Mr Riber left down here and we can manage with environmental suits until you can come down and get us."
Hank smiled slightly. "That won't be necessary I will see you in a few moments, Colonel," he said before indicating to communications to close the comm. link down. "Major Marks scan the base and then transport Colonel Rodriguez and this Mr Riber straight here to the bridge. Once they're aboard start transporting the people off the escape pods and shuttles, place them in one of the cargo holds. And have medical personnel meet them there."
"Yes sir," Marks confirmed before accessing the primary sensor array and scanning the base on the surface of Mars. Despite the fact that the plant the generated fresh air and recycled water for the base had been destroyed, the damage pattern indicative of a direct strike to the heart of the plant, the facility was still largely intact. He couldn't help but be impressed by both its size and sheer complexity in many ways it was far superior to any of the off world facilities they'd built themselves as they'd never had to contend with an environment as hostile to life, in any form, as Mars was.
A powerful energy source, roughly equivalent to the power output of their own main naquada reactor, appeared on the scan towards the centre and beneath the base. Its output was declining, presumably because it was being automatically powered down, but he could see enough to know it wasn't like any energy source they'd ever encountered before. Continuing with his scans he finally noticed two human life signs in what appeared to be an annex to the command centre. He quickly locked onto them with the transport sensors before lowering the shields and remotely activating the transporter.
Hank allowed himself a small smile as the familiar musical tone of an Asgard transporter beam activating filled the bridge and with the usual flash of silver-white light two individuals, both wearing what were clearly environmental suits of some kind and holding helmets in their hands, materialised right in front of the viewport. As soon as the beam released them both men began looking around in shock.
"Colonel Rodriguez, Mister Riber welcome to the Odyssey," he said in greeting.
"Unbelievable," the one he didn't immediately recognise, who he assumed to be Riber, breathed as he realised just what had happened. "Near instantaneous matter-energy transport, incredible. How the hell did you do that? The Heisenberg uncertainty principle should make such teleportation a scientific impossibility."
"Riber stow the interrogation please," the other man, who Hank recognised at Rodriguez, said sounding amused. "We can ask such questions later. For now let's just be grateful that we're alive, okay?"
With an obvious reluctance, the reluctance of a scientist whose mind was demanding answers to something he'd experienced, Riber nodded. Hank made a mental note to send him down to talk to Colonel Carter later, but be far away when they really started talking in scientist. That kind of rapid fire technobabble tended to give him a headache real quickly, which was one of the reasons why both Colonel Carter and Dr Lee had learned to be as clear as possible when giving briefings on various subjects relating to the Stargate or to starship engineering.
Satisfied that Karl Riber was cowed into silence for now, though he would admit he too was curious about the transporter beam, alongside the incredibly powerful beam weapons and the defensive energy shield this ship seemed to have, Colonel Rodriguez turned to access their host. The man sitting in what was clearly the command chair held himself like a career soldier and a skilled leader of men. He of course immediately recognised the uniform as being the uniform of a US Air Force Major General and now that he thought about it the entire bridge crew he could see were wearing USAF uniforms. Which didn't make sense as the USAF like all the other of the world's militaries had been absorbed into the United Earth Defence Forces after the end of the Global Civil War.
It was just one of many mysteries posed by this ship.
The Odyssey's very existence was a mystery as was its power source as while the sensors on Sara Base hadn't been able to fully penetrate the ships shields, they had gathered some information. Enough to know that whatever powered this ship it wasn't a reflex furnace, fusion reactor or even a hybrid fusion-fission reactor like on their own ships, the energy signature they'd been able to detect was completely unknown. Put whatever it was its output was phenomenal, completely off the scale as far as their instruments had been concerned. One thing was sure wherever this ship had come from, and however a bunch of personnel from an armed force that no longer existed had gotten their hands on it, it was bound to be an interesting story. What would be even more interesting is if they could get them to share the technology, especially the shield tech, as it would go a long way towards helping them protect Earth when the aliens came in force.
He decided that he might as well start trying to get some answers to those questions. "General forgive me for seeming to be ungrateful but where did members of a military force that hasn't existed for five years get a ship this advanced," he asked.
"As I said Colonel it's a very long, complex and crazy sounding story," Hank replied not really that surprised that the other man wanted some answers. If their positions were reversed he'd be wanting answers as well. "We're not aliens or anything like that, we're human just like you are – well most of us Teal'c is a Jaffa an offshoot of humans genetically engineered by a species called the Goa'uld thousands of years ago."
"Jaffa, Goa'uld what are those," Rodriguez asked curious.
"I'm not sure if they exist here one way to know is are they're pyramids here?"
"Pyramids as in Egyptian pyramids," Riber queried, when Hank nodded he continued. "Yes there are but what do they have to do with the Goa'uld?"
"Where we're from the pyramids are the remains of landing pedestals for Goa'uld Cheops and Ha'tak-class motherships."
"Where you're from?" Rodriquez asked "are you from some sort of parallel world or something." He blinked. "You are aren't you?"
"Yes," Hank confirmed. "In our reality the Goa'uld came to Earth eight thousand years ago and began taking humans from the various cultures of the Ancient World and seeding them among the stars to serve them. Most became slaves, some were biogenetically and biochemically altered to become Jaffa a race of soldiers and living incubators for Goa'uld young, the most unfortunate ones became hosts for the Goa'uld themselves."
"Hosts," Rodriquez repeated the nuances conjured up by the word sending a shiver of horror down his spine, if this General Landry meant what he thought he meant. "I take it these Goa'uld are parasites of some kind?"
"They are," Vala said breaking in shivering as she remembered her own possession by Qetesh. "The natural form of a Goa'uld is a snake-like aquatic creature, however they can burrow into a host – usually a human but they can use other species as well. One there they wrap themselves around the spinal cord and hijack control of the voluntary nervous system. I know from experience what it's like to be a host as I was host to a System Lord named Qetesh for fifty years until an enemy of the Goa'uld captured Qetesh and removed her from my body.
"It's a horrible experience," Vala continued, "it's a terror beyond description to be trapped in the very deepest, darkest part of your mind your aware of everything the Goa'uld does. Every murder, every act of evil perpetuated as the Goa'uld are evil and demand all worship them as gods and torture or kill all who do not." Her voice trailed off and she looked down shivering against the memories that haunted her to this day, memories that would haunt her until the day she died. After a moment she felt a comforting hand touch her shoulder and knew it was Cam giving what support he could though he could never truly understand how she felt, the only one on board who really could was Sam but even her experience was different given she'd been the temporary host of the Tok'ra Jolinar.
"That sounds… unpleasant," Rodriquez said unable to suppress a shudder at the very thought of such a ghastly fate and feeling more than a twinge of sympathy for the woman who'd been forced to endure such an unthinkable horror. The terror and helplessness she'd experienced didn't bear thinking about. He suddenly hoped that these Goa'uld didn't exist here but he had a very, very horrible suspicion that they did. As if we didn't have enough to worry about with those alien giants who built the SDF-1, he thought, now there is the potential for these megalomaniacal parasites to be out there as well. Yeech.
A quick glance at Riber showed the younger, and much more naive, man looked like he wanted to be sick at the very thought of such an evil species existing. Riber so wanted to believe that a technologically advanced species would be benign and advanced beyond violence when that was very unlikely to ever be the case. The aliens who'd just attacked Sara Base without warning or provocation was proof of that. He couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for him.
A chirp from one of the consoles brought Rodriguez out of his thoughts just as one of the crew spoke up. "Sir the last of the survivors have been transported aboard," the man to Landry's left said. "They're all in cargo bay six, Doctor Lam has set up triage facilities to care for the wounded."
"Thank you major," Hank acknowledged Marks. "Helm bring us about and resume course to Earth, maximum sublight."
"Yes sir," the helmswoman acknowledged.
"How long will it take us to reach Earth," Riber asked feeling more than a little glee at the thought that, regardless of the circumstances that had led to their long overdue reunion, he'd soon get to see his beloved Lisa again.
"At maximum sublight an hour to an hour and a half," Hank replied.
"Whoa what propels this ship," Riber asked shocked at the implied speed of this vessel. To make the journey to Earth in such a short space of time at sublight whatever propelled the Odyssey had to accelerate her to a significant percentage of the speed of light. Oh how the engineer and scientist in him would love to get a look at the innards of such a propulsion system. "Our own fusion engines take months to make the trip. Your sublight engines must be incredibly advanced to make the journey so quickly, how do you compensate for the gee forces?"
"Inertial dampeners. As for how the sublight drives work all in good time Mr Riber all in good time," Hank answered, smiling in amusement and deciding he'd send the younger man down to engineering to have a chat with Colonel Carter while he talked some more with Colonel Rodriguez. "Now Colonel Rodriguez why don't we retire to the briefing room. I believe we have a few more things to talk about before we reach Earth. Mr Riber Colonel Mitchell will escort you down to engineering where I'm sure Colonel Carter will be able to answer your questions."
"Agreed," Rodriquez answered, unable to suppress a smile as he saw Riber almost bounce in excitement about talking to this Colonel Carter about some of the Odyssey's technology. Hmm methinks Lisa Hayes is going to find herself with some competition especially if this Colonel Carter is physically attractive, he thought knowing full well how Karl Riber and Lisa Hayes felt about each other. It had been the worst kept secret on Sara Base that Riber loved and intended to marry Admiral Hayes' only child when he returned to Earth.
"Major Marks the conns yours," Hank said standing up from the command chair.
"Yes sir," Marks acknowledged.
"This way, Colonel," Hank indicated leading the way off the bridge, Rodriguez following a few paces behind him both knowing that they had a great deal to talk about in the time it would take for this ship to reach Earth orbit. Many decisions to make.
Decisions that, though neither knew it, could have a drastic effect on the galaxy's future.
~~//~~
Authors Notes: Well there's another chapter of this fic up for you all to read. In the Robotech timeline events take place in the year 2005 and follow the chronology established in the Mars Base One sections of the Invasion comic.
I should also point out that while this is primarily a robotech world it isn't completely the same as canon robotech but has some stargate elements present like the Goa'uld though they won't be playing a major role - yet anyway - so in that regard this is as much a fusion fic as it is a crossover. I hope nobody minds too much and I hope people are comfortable with the implied power levels.
This is probably going to be the last update of this fic for a bit as while I do have some more chapters completed I want to give some of my other work a bit of attention - especially Second Chances, Pioneers Dawn and possibly Destiny's Child: The Reboot as well.
Well it looks promising and I do love the SG-1/Robotech crossover. It will be interesting to see the two technological bases mixed.
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
Chapter Four
United Earth Defence Command
Alaska Base, Alaska
One Hour Later
Tension filled the air of the situation room.
Standing on the command platform, with Captain Henry Gloval – who'd been at the base delivering a status report on the reconstruction of the SDF-1 – beside him, Admiral Donald Hayes had a concerned frown on his face as he studied the space radar screens. For the last hour they'd been tracking an unknown contact coming towards Earth from Mars, and coming at an incredibly high speed – speed that no human made ship could hope to rival.
Which meant that whatever it was it could only be alien in origin.
The fact that it was coming such a short time after communications had been lost both with Sara Base and the Oberth was also cause for a great deal of concern. While there was no way to be sure at this time it was very possible that the incoming vessel had destroyed both the ship and the Mars facility. A possibility that filled him with both professional and personal concern, professional because aside from two other Oberth-class destroyers they had no spaceships capable of intercepting and stopping the intruder before it reached Earth orbit and if it was hostile there was no guarantee that just two destroyers would have the firepower to defeat it. Especially as Sara Base hadn't exactly been defenceless having a number of ground to space missile launchers for defence, not to mention one of the first operational squadrons of Lancer-II space fighters. Between them and the particle cannons and missiles on the Oberth they should have been able to take out one hostile alien vessel. The fact that they hadn't raised the terrifying possibility that the aliens were even more powerful and dangerous than they'd ever believed possible.
Privately though his concern was focused more on his daughter. If Sara Base had indeed been destroyed then Karl Riber would certainly be dead. Something that he knew would, when she learned about it, tear his little girl apart. He wasn't blind to how Lisa and Karl felt about one another and was well aware of the fact that when he returned to Earth that Karl had intended to ask for Lisa's hand in marriage. A union Donald personally had no real objection to, Karl was a good man who genuinely loved Lisa and had helped her considerably in the weeks and months that had followed her mother's brutal murder by car bomb planted by Anti-Unification League fanatics. Oh when asked for permission he'd play the role of the father who wasn't quite convinced that the somewhat naive man was right for his little girl – as that was kind of the tradition with these things – but in the end he'd give in as it would make Lisa so happy.
"It's slowing down," Gloval said from beside him breaking him out of his thoughts. He turned his full attention back to the screens to see the Russian officer had spoken the truth. The unknown vessel had passed the moon and was now rapidly slowing down and coming around onto a vector that would clearly see it entering orbit. A high orbit but definitely an orbit. The Oberth destroyers Miranda and Circe were already altering their own orbits to intercept the intruder; an intruder that, now that it had slowed down, they were able to get more detailed sensor readings on.
It wasn't a large ship, roughly the same size as a Gibraltar-class supercarrier like his last command the Kenosha had been. But if the sensors on some of the orbital satellites were to be believed its power signature was incredibly high, whatever its power source was it was pumping out more energy every second than the entire continental United States did in nearly two days. Despite its small size he shivered to think how extensive and devastating its firepower was, no doubt it easily had enough weaponry to level a few cities from orbit. If the alien crew were to attack now he shuddered to think about the devastation they could wreck upon the planet and they had little to fight back with at this time, the reconstruction of the SDF-1 was only half complete and aside from the destroyers none of their planned fixed defences had even started construction yet.
"Sir we're being scanned by the unknown vessel," one of the sensor techs reported.
"What kind of scan? Are they targeting," Donald demanded wondering if the aliens were hostile how they knew to target Alaska Base first as taking them out would effectively cripple their ability to defend the planet. What little ability they had right now.
"I don't believe so sir," the technician answered "sirs energy spike aboard the bogey."
"What kind of…" Donald started to say only for his voice to trail off as a sudden strange lightness and an odd tingling sensation filled his body. What the, he thought a moment before a strange musical tone filled his ears and the situation room suddenly dissolved away into a shimmer of silver-white light. For a moment all he saw was the light, all he heard was the odd musical tone and felt a strange rushing sensation as though he was moving at an incredibly high speed.
Then with the same breath taking suddenness with which it started the sensations ended. The light and musical tones vanished. But he wasn't in the situation room on Alaska Base any longer. Instead a few feet in front of him, was a wide viewport through which he could see the curvature of the Earth below. He could easily make out the fjord dotted coastlines of British Columbia and Alaska and see the dot like chain of the Aleutian Islands.
"What," he breathed looking around in shock to see they beyond the view port he was in a metal walled room that looked eerily like some of the rooms on his last ocean going command the ill-fated USS Kenosha – lost to a tsunami created by the seismic shockwave of the impact of what now was the SDF-1 with Macross Island. There was the same military utilitarian look to them, though these walls were made of an odd bluish-grey metal that didn't quite look like anything he'd ever seen before.
A table made of pressed steel plate dominated the centre of the room with chairs all around it and on the bulkhead off to the right he could see a large TFT screen. A screen that was currently showing a disc-like motif with an image of a vaguely trimaran-shaped ship engraved on it surrounded by at the top the words USS Odyssey and below 1st Deep Space Tactical Wing. It didn't take him long to realise that he was aboard the vessel they had been tracking, teleported somehow from the surface to here.
A faint flicker of light had him turning back to the viewport for a moment. Just in time to see the outside world shimmer and blur for a moment, almost like he was seeing it through a sheet of running water, before stabilising. A moment later there came a faint vibration in the deck beneath him as the ship began to move, slipping easily into a different position in orbit until he wasn't looking at the western seaboard anymore but was looking straight down at Lake Superior and the Great Lakes basin. The faint vibration in the deck ceased presumably as the ship came to a dead halt over the region.
The sound of a heavy door opening had him spinning around again, just in time to see a heavy metal door sliding to the side a moment before a man came into the room. A man who was dressed in an old US Air Force uniform with two general's stars on his shoulder tabs. "Good afternoon, Admiral Hayes," the man said in greeting. "Forgive the sudden transport but it's important that we speak without interruption."
"Who are you," Donald demanded, "why did you bring me here?"
"Where are my manners, allow me to introduce myself I am Major General Hank Landry commanding officer of Stargate Command and acting captain of the starship Odyssey," the man answered. "As for why I had you beamed up here, I just told you we need to talk and I didn't fancy spending a few hours or days going through bureaucratic hoops with your United Earth Defence Council before even getting a chance to talk to you. I hate dealing with political bullshit at the best of times and after the day or so I've had I'm even less inclined to deal with it than normal. Hence why I went straight to the heart of the matter and had you transported up here."
Despite being more than a little annoyed at being basically abducted from his own command centre Donald couldn't help but smile at the familiar exasperated tone in this General Landry's voice about being unwilling to put up with political bullshit. He often felt the same when dealing with Senator Russo and the other more political members of the UEG and UEDC. More than once he'd felt like throttling them, especially Russo when he was at his politicking worst. "You do realise this could be interpreted as an act of aggression," he warned, "the other ships in orbit will be looking for this ship now and they will demand you return me immediately or they will fire upon you."
"We've just cloaked your ships cannot see us and won't see us until we're done," Landry replied seemingly completely unconcerned. If he was right about the ship having somehow cloaked itself, again like something out of science fiction, then Donald realised that he had every right to be confident. Neither the Miranda nor the Circe had sensors designed to penetrate such an advanced stealth mechanism as even Dr Lang, arguably the most intelligent man alive and their main expert on the fledgling science of robotechnology, had long dismissed actual cloaking as being impossible. He couldn't help but wonder where this General Landry had gotten that technology from alongside the impossible teleportation beam that had whisked him up here in the first place.
Donald sighed to himself. I better listen to what this guy wants then, he thought, as it appears I don't really have a lot of choice in the matter. "Since it appears I don't have a lot of choice in the matter I'll hear what you have to say," he said at last. "But I warn you abducting me like this has put you on some very thin ice with me right now, General Landry."
"I can understand that and if there had been any other way I could have been sure I'd get to talk to you then you can be certain I would have taken it," Landry replied, "all I can ask you now is that you keep an open mind as what I'm going to tell you is quite hard to believe, though if you want it I am of course fully prepared to offer you proof of what I say."
Donald raised an eyebrow. "I'll do my best to keep an open mind," he answered after a moments silence, his annoyance at being basically kidnapped fading somewhat, replaced by curiosity and a twinge of respect. Respect as doing the whole 'beam me up, Scotty' thing to him without anything so much as a 'by your leave' was one hell of a gutsy move he had to respect that. And curiosity about just why he'd done it, what was so important that they needed to talk immediately.
"Good," Hank replied with a smile before gesturing to one of the seats. "Please take a seat."
Donald did as he was bid, sitting down in one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs, his back to the viewport. He didn't need to be distracted by the admittedly breath taking view. The other man seemed to understand what he'd done as he immediately sat down directly opposite him so they could see eye to eye instead of sitting at the head of the table.
"Then let us begin," Hank said calmly. Before beginning what was going to be a very long, and for Admiral Donald Hayes a very world shaking, explanation as to the Odyssey's presence here, her technology, what she represented and the fact that they came from another reality.
~~//~~
Thirty Minutes Later
"That's quite a story," Donald said after sitting in silence while this General Landry outlined a story that sounded like it came straight out of the pages of a science fiction novel. A part of him didn't want to believe it; stable wormholes to other planets through an ancient alien device called a Stargate, snake-like parasitic alien creatures that hijacked human bodies and strutted around the galaxy pretending to be the gods of antiquity. Higher dimensional life forms that wanted to convert the whole universe to a false religion just so they could gain more power from the very act of worship – though how that would work he had no idea – not to mention the apparent trans-dimensional travel this ship had been through.
It sounded… well… absolutely preposterous.
But he could tell it was the truth. He'd always had a knack for being able to tell if someone was lying to him or not, he could even tell if someone wasn't being entirely truthful. A human lie detector his late and dearly beloved wife, Sara, had called him on more than one occasion during the long years of their marriage. It was a skill that had served him well over the years, it had especially come in useful in dealing with Russo and his technocratic flunkies, and it told him now that General Landry hadn't been lying to him. Everything he'd said had been the absolute truth.
"Let's assume I believe you for a moment," he said after a few moments of silence. "What is it that you want from us?"
"A home," Landry answered plainly. "At present there is no known way back to our own reality from here and even with all the Asgard technology built into this ship there is no way Odyssey could sustain our full crew of two hundred and seven for more than a couple of months. After that our life support systems will start giving out. We're willing to offer you a lot in exchange."
"Such as," Donald asked, he already had some idea Landry was going to say as the only thing he really had to bargain with was the technology on this ship. Technology that when combined with their budding robotech science would go one hell of a long way towards protecting Earth from the threat of alien invasion.
"Technology," Landry replied, "as I said there is a lot of Asgard technology built into this ship as a last gift to us from our allies. Now in our reality the Asgard were one of the most technologically advanced and powerful races in the known universe, we're willing to share a great deal of that technology with you.
"Plus we've scanned the planet and detected the presence of a Stargate. It's in a glacial cave in Antarctica just like one of the gates in our world was, we haven't detected the other so if the Goa'uld did come to this world its likely Ra took it back with him when they were driven away," Landry continued. "I'm willing right now to use this ships transporters to recover the gate and its dialling device. We can show you how to use them."
"That's one hell of an incentive," Donald admitted knowing Russo and the others in the UEDC and in the UEG would be salivating at the thought of getting their hands on even some of this ships technology. "What about these Goa'uld, if we open this Stargate wouldn't we be under threat from them?"
"You would," Hank admitted. "But there are many worlds in the gate system, quite a few of which the Goa'uld have never touched. Many of which have treasures on them that make going through the gate well worth the occasional risk of bumping into some overly egomaniacal snakehead with appalling fashion sense and penchant for melodrama."
Donald couldn't help but chuckle at that description of a Goa'uld. "What kind of treasures," he asked.
"Three elements in particular naquada, neutronium and trinium. Though while we were rescuing the survivors from Sara Base we did scan the region and have noticed the planet does have significant deposits of trinium ore enough to satisfy any conceivable demand by Earth for at least a hundred years."
"Why those elements?" Donald asked wondering just what it was about those three elements that made them so valuable.
"You'll have to ask Colonel Carter if you want to know the exact science but naquada is one hell of a room temperature superconductor. Naquada can also be used to enhance energy reactions either for power generation purposes or for use in weapons. Neutronium is a very dense quasi-metallic element that is a key component for the fabrication of certain Asgard technologies like the subspace field coils of hyperspace drives – though if push comes to shove you can make them out of naquada instead – as well as a base material from which many forms of advanced nanotechnology can be created. As for trinium while it's brittle in its ore form when refined it produces a metal a hundred times stronger than titanium or carbon steel, a material harder than diamonds while being as light as aluminium sheeting. It's also got one of the highest thermal tolerances we've ever seen, especially when you alloy it with something like titanium or naquada."
Donald's eyes widened as the other man spoke. All three materials sounded very interesting. This naquada especially sounded like incredibly useful stuff and he could only imagine what they'd be able to do with it. The trinium also sounded like it would be incredibly useful especially if they could alloy it with titanium, it might even let them create materials with the same strengths as the alien metals on the SDF-1. Most of which had so far defied their best attempts at recreating, the synthetic alloys were just too complex for them to duplicate, with many using elements that were completely unknown to Earth science. The potential applications both civilian and military for both materials were myriad and far too numerous for him to imagine right now.
After a moment he sighed. "I'll have to talk to the UEG in New York about allowing you to settle here," he said at last, "you will probably have to swear some form of allegiance to the UEG or at least the Defence Council."
"I'm sure that something can be worked out," Hank replied "especially as the military is where we'll be the most useful to you I expect. I know Colonel Carter will probably already have some ideas in mind for improving your warships as no offense intended but for their size your destroyers seem to be somewhat underpowered. Not to mention they lack any form of defensive energy shielding."
"None taken," Donald answered. Thanks to his position he was fully, and uncomfortably, aware the Oberth-class destroyers and the still incomplete Armour One cruiser did have a fair few problems. Specifically relating to a lack of sufficient power generation as the hybrid fission-fusion reactors they were currently using to power them just weren't up to powering their robotech systems properly especially the weapons systems. Weapons which in live fire tests had shown themselves to have a much larger power draw than expected and – due to lack of sufficient power – an appallingly slow rate of fire being capable of only one or two shots a minute. The hope had been that the reverse engineering of reflex furnace technology would go some way to redressing that shortfall; though Donald didn't fool himself into thinking that a basic Earth-made version of a reflex furnace would be enough to solve the power generation issue, at least not completely. Now that he thought about it this naquada material – if it really had the described capabilities – could be just the thing they'd needed to finally solve that – and a few other – particularly thorny problems they'd been experiencing with their fleet designs.
Then something else Landry had said registered with him. "Energy shielding," Donald asked, "that's possible?"
"Of course," Hank answered, a faint smirk at the edge of his lips at surprising him yet again. "Like all of our warships the Odyssey has a series of very high powered force fields for defensive purposes as well as the ablative armour over the hull. Shields are quite a common technology where we're from. We will certainly share the technology with you."
"I see," Donald replied inwardly smiling at the thought of getting real trek-style energy shielding to protect their ships. Anything that improved the survivability of their warships, and the crews of said warships, whenever the giant aliens eventually turned up to either invade the planet or reclaim the SDF-1, would be incredibly welcome.
"Shields are just one technology we can provide you with the specifications for, we have a great many others," Hank added knowing the amount of data on various technologies was immense. Especially given the Asgard Core contained a complete copy of the Asgard races entire knowledge base. Though they would have to be careful not to give away too much, just in case they ever found a way to get home.
"I can imagine," Donald agreed wondering just what other technologies these people had at their command, technologies that they were willing to share with them in exchange for having a safe place to live while they searched for a way to return to their own reality. It was one hell of a good deal for them. "As I said I will have to speak with the UEG in New York about allowing you to settle here. Because of my position on the Defence Council I do have considerable influence with them I am fully willing to use that influence on your behalf."
"Thank you. If you have no further question I am fully prepared to transport you back down to the planet now. Unlike in some of the sci-fi shows you've no doubt seen we have no need to decloak in order to use our transporters."
"Before I return to the surface I'd like to talk to some of the survivors from Sara Base if I can," Donald replied.
"Is there anyone in particular that you want to speak to," Hank asked, "I can certainly have them brought here to see you."
"Colonel Rodriguez and Lisa would never forgive me if I didn't speak to Karl Riber and make sure he's alright," Donald asked.
Hank raised an eyebrow. "Lisa?" he queried.
"My daughter and Mr Riber's intended fiancé."
"I understand," Hank replied and he did understand somewhat where the other man was coming from. Any father would though he and his daughter, Carolyn had been estranged for years with their relationship only thawing after they'd both been posted to the SGC – albeit at different times as if they both had known that the other would be there they probably would never have agreed to be posted there. "I'll have them brought up here, though I might have to beam Mr Riber out of engineering if he won't come willingly. He's been discussing some aspects of our technology with Colonel Carter since shortly after we brought the survivors aboard."
"That sounds like him," Donald agreed an amused smirk appearing on his face. If there was one thing he knew about Karl Riber it was put a new technological puzzle to solve in front of him and you'd have his complete attention.
Well at least as long as that puzzle didn't obviously involve the development of advanced weapons technology, he thought, knowing Riber being firmly of the opinion that they had more than enough weapons as it was without needing anymore. Not to mention he had the naïve opinion that any species advanced enough to travel in space would have long ago advanced beyond the concept of violence. Though the alien attack on Sara Base has probably exposed that hope to be the naïve thing it was, he thought, technologically highly advanced the aliens who first built the SDF-1 might have been, peaceful they are not.
Hank standing up brought him out of his thoughts. "I'll leave you here then," he said, "and have Colonel Rodriguez and Mr Riber brought to see you. After that let the guard outside know and we'll transport you back down to the surface. Before they arrive do you want a drink or something?"
"Oh yes please, I'd love a coffee."
"I'll have some sent in for you," Hank replied before leaving the room to make the arrangements.
For his part Donald stood back up and went to the viewport and looked down upon Earth rotating majestically below the ship. It was true what they said, viewing Earth from space really made you appreciate both how beautiful and fragile their world was. A world that it was his job as the senior military officer on the UEDC to protect, to defend unto death if necessary. The technology of this ship could only help him do that. He would just have to convince the rest of the UEDC and the UEG to go along with it, which meant he had to go play politics – a prospect that made him want to groan in annoyance as he hated playing political games. The things I do to protect Earth, he thought with a resigned sigh before the sound of the door opening again caught his attention.
Turning in place he saw an air force rating come in carrying a tray on which sat a steaming mug of black coffee, a few mugs, a jug of milk, teaspoons and a bowl of sugar cubes. "Coffee for you sir," the rating said noticing him looking.
"Thank you put it on the table," Donald instructed.
"Yes sir," the rating acknowledged before carrying out the order and putting the tray, and its glorious smelling contents, down on the table. "Will there be anything else sir?"
"Not right now thank you. You're dismissed."
The rating nodded and left the room. Alone once again Donald immediately went to the table and poured himself a coffee with a generous helping of milk and his usual two sugars. Before sitting down to wait for his colleagues to arrive.
~~//~~
United Earth Defence Command
Alaska Base, Alaska
Sometime Later
Captain Henry Gloval paced back and forth along the command platform overlooking Alaska Base's situation room. It had been a few hours now since Admiral Hayes had been basically abducted by an unknown alien ship, whisked away by what was obviously some kind of transporter beam however impossible it sounded, followed by said ship mysteriously vanishing from orbit. So far they'd not been able to locate the vessel, both the orbiting destroyers and ground based stations had repeatedly scanned orbit searching for the ship.
They'd found nothing.
Which meant one of two things. Either the alien ship had left orbit through some means they couldn't detect or it was hiding behind some kind of cloaking system – a form of stealth technology that had long been ruled impossible and thus confined to the realms of science fiction. Either way the aliens – whoever and whatever they were – had Admiral Hayes creating a massive hole in planetary security. And to make matters worse the rest of the UEDC had put him in charge of dealing with it.
He'd been trying to do that ever since but no matter what he did nothing seemed to work and he was frankly coming to his wits end. If nothing changed soon then he would have to be the one who told Lieutenant Lisa Hayes that her father had gone missing, though he wouldn't be able to tell her how as the UEDC had already classified the existence of the alien transporter beam. Transporters and apparently cloaks being real, he thought not for the first time, what the hell is the world coming to when inventions previously only seen in shows like Star Trek show up in real life. How are we to deal with aliens who have that kind of technology? After all if they can beam someone out of somewhere they can easily beam a nuke or some other weapon into anywhere they want to.
He couldn't help but shudder at that prospect.
Abruptly a musical tone filled the air coming from the back of the command platform. The exact same musical tone that had preceded Admiral Hayes vanishing in a beam of silver-white light. He froze and spun around just in time to see a slender line of silver-white light appear. Almost instantly the beam expanded as something seemed to shoot down into it, making it flare brighter before with a crescendo vanishing…
…leaving behind one Admiral Donald Hayes.
"Whoa that's a rush," Donald said softly to himself as he recovered from the transport, being beamed somewhere was certainly a very novel experience but one he could easily get used to. He looked up before laughing out loud at the utterly gobsmacked look on the face of Henry Gloval. It was rare to see the normally almost unflappable Russian rendered so utterly speechless. "What's the matter, Henry cat got your tongue?"
United Earth Defence Command
Alaska Base, Alaska
One Hour Later
Tension filled the air of the situation room.
Standing on the command platform, with Captain Henry Gloval – who'd been at the base delivering a status report on the reconstruction of the SDF-1 – beside him, Admiral Donald Hayes had a concerned frown on his face as he studied the space radar screens. For the last hour they'd been tracking an unknown contact coming towards Earth from Mars, and coming at an incredibly high speed – speed that no human made ship could hope to rival.
Which meant that whatever it was it could only be alien in origin.
The fact that it was coming such a short time after communications had been lost both with Sara Base and the Oberth was also cause for a great deal of concern. While there was no way to be sure at this time it was very possible that the incoming vessel had destroyed both the ship and the Mars facility. A possibility that filled him with both professional and personal concern, professional because aside from two other Oberth-class destroyers they had no spaceships capable of intercepting and stopping the intruder before it reached Earth orbit and if it was hostile there was no guarantee that just two destroyers would have the firepower to defeat it. Especially as Sara Base hadn't exactly been defenceless having a number of ground to space missile launchers for defence, not to mention one of the first operational squadrons of Lancer-II space fighters. Between them and the particle cannons and missiles on the Oberth they should have been able to take out one hostile alien vessel. The fact that they hadn't raised the terrifying possibility that the aliens were even more powerful and dangerous than they'd ever believed possible.
Privately though his concern was focused more on his daughter. If Sara Base had indeed been destroyed then Karl Riber would certainly be dead. Something that he knew would, when she learned about it, tear his little girl apart. He wasn't blind to how Lisa and Karl felt about one another and was well aware of the fact that when he returned to Earth that Karl had intended to ask for Lisa's hand in marriage. A union Donald personally had no real objection to, Karl was a good man who genuinely loved Lisa and had helped her considerably in the weeks and months that had followed her mother's brutal murder by car bomb planted by Anti-Unification League fanatics. Oh when asked for permission he'd play the role of the father who wasn't quite convinced that the somewhat naive man was right for his little girl – as that was kind of the tradition with these things – but in the end he'd give in as it would make Lisa so happy.
"It's slowing down," Gloval said from beside him breaking him out of his thoughts. He turned his full attention back to the screens to see the Russian officer had spoken the truth. The unknown vessel had passed the moon and was now rapidly slowing down and coming around onto a vector that would clearly see it entering orbit. A high orbit but definitely an orbit. The Oberth destroyers Miranda and Circe were already altering their own orbits to intercept the intruder; an intruder that, now that it had slowed down, they were able to get more detailed sensor readings on.
It wasn't a large ship, roughly the same size as a Gibraltar-class supercarrier like his last command the Kenosha had been. But if the sensors on some of the orbital satellites were to be believed its power signature was incredibly high, whatever its power source was it was pumping out more energy every second than the entire continental United States did in nearly two days. Despite its small size he shivered to think how extensive and devastating its firepower was, no doubt it easily had enough weaponry to level a few cities from orbit. If the alien crew were to attack now he shuddered to think about the devastation they could wreck upon the planet and they had little to fight back with at this time, the reconstruction of the SDF-1 was only half complete and aside from the destroyers none of their planned fixed defences had even started construction yet.
"Sir we're being scanned by the unknown vessel," one of the sensor techs reported.
"What kind of scan? Are they targeting," Donald demanded wondering if the aliens were hostile how they knew to target Alaska Base first as taking them out would effectively cripple their ability to defend the planet. What little ability they had right now.
"I don't believe so sir," the technician answered "sirs energy spike aboard the bogey."
"What kind of…" Donald started to say only for his voice to trail off as a sudden strange lightness and an odd tingling sensation filled his body. What the, he thought a moment before a strange musical tone filled his ears and the situation room suddenly dissolved away into a shimmer of silver-white light. For a moment all he saw was the light, all he heard was the odd musical tone and felt a strange rushing sensation as though he was moving at an incredibly high speed.
Then with the same breath taking suddenness with which it started the sensations ended. The light and musical tones vanished. But he wasn't in the situation room on Alaska Base any longer. Instead a few feet in front of him, was a wide viewport through which he could see the curvature of the Earth below. He could easily make out the fjord dotted coastlines of British Columbia and Alaska and see the dot like chain of the Aleutian Islands.
"What," he breathed looking around in shock to see they beyond the view port he was in a metal walled room that looked eerily like some of the rooms on his last ocean going command the ill-fated USS Kenosha – lost to a tsunami created by the seismic shockwave of the impact of what now was the SDF-1 with Macross Island. There was the same military utilitarian look to them, though these walls were made of an odd bluish-grey metal that didn't quite look like anything he'd ever seen before.
A table made of pressed steel plate dominated the centre of the room with chairs all around it and on the bulkhead off to the right he could see a large TFT screen. A screen that was currently showing a disc-like motif with an image of a vaguely trimaran-shaped ship engraved on it surrounded by at the top the words USS Odyssey and below 1st Deep Space Tactical Wing. It didn't take him long to realise that he was aboard the vessel they had been tracking, teleported somehow from the surface to here.
A faint flicker of light had him turning back to the viewport for a moment. Just in time to see the outside world shimmer and blur for a moment, almost like he was seeing it through a sheet of running water, before stabilising. A moment later there came a faint vibration in the deck beneath him as the ship began to move, slipping easily into a different position in orbit until he wasn't looking at the western seaboard anymore but was looking straight down at Lake Superior and the Great Lakes basin. The faint vibration in the deck ceased presumably as the ship came to a dead halt over the region.
The sound of a heavy door opening had him spinning around again, just in time to see a heavy metal door sliding to the side a moment before a man came into the room. A man who was dressed in an old US Air Force uniform with two general's stars on his shoulder tabs. "Good afternoon, Admiral Hayes," the man said in greeting. "Forgive the sudden transport but it's important that we speak without interruption."
"Who are you," Donald demanded, "why did you bring me here?"
"Where are my manners, allow me to introduce myself I am Major General Hank Landry commanding officer of Stargate Command and acting captain of the starship Odyssey," the man answered. "As for why I had you beamed up here, I just told you we need to talk and I didn't fancy spending a few hours or days going through bureaucratic hoops with your United Earth Defence Council before even getting a chance to talk to you. I hate dealing with political bullshit at the best of times and after the day or so I've had I'm even less inclined to deal with it than normal. Hence why I went straight to the heart of the matter and had you transported up here."
Despite being more than a little annoyed at being basically abducted from his own command centre Donald couldn't help but smile at the familiar exasperated tone in this General Landry's voice about being unwilling to put up with political bullshit. He often felt the same when dealing with Senator Russo and the other more political members of the UEG and UEDC. More than once he'd felt like throttling them, especially Russo when he was at his politicking worst. "You do realise this could be interpreted as an act of aggression," he warned, "the other ships in orbit will be looking for this ship now and they will demand you return me immediately or they will fire upon you."
"We've just cloaked your ships cannot see us and won't see us until we're done," Landry replied seemingly completely unconcerned. If he was right about the ship having somehow cloaked itself, again like something out of science fiction, then Donald realised that he had every right to be confident. Neither the Miranda nor the Circe had sensors designed to penetrate such an advanced stealth mechanism as even Dr Lang, arguably the most intelligent man alive and their main expert on the fledgling science of robotechnology, had long dismissed actual cloaking as being impossible. He couldn't help but wonder where this General Landry had gotten that technology from alongside the impossible teleportation beam that had whisked him up here in the first place.
Donald sighed to himself. I better listen to what this guy wants then, he thought, as it appears I don't really have a lot of choice in the matter. "Since it appears I don't have a lot of choice in the matter I'll hear what you have to say," he said at last. "But I warn you abducting me like this has put you on some very thin ice with me right now, General Landry."
"I can understand that and if there had been any other way I could have been sure I'd get to talk to you then you can be certain I would have taken it," Landry replied, "all I can ask you now is that you keep an open mind as what I'm going to tell you is quite hard to believe, though if you want it I am of course fully prepared to offer you proof of what I say."
Donald raised an eyebrow. "I'll do my best to keep an open mind," he answered after a moments silence, his annoyance at being basically kidnapped fading somewhat, replaced by curiosity and a twinge of respect. Respect as doing the whole 'beam me up, Scotty' thing to him without anything so much as a 'by your leave' was one hell of a gutsy move he had to respect that. And curiosity about just why he'd done it, what was so important that they needed to talk immediately.
"Good," Hank replied with a smile before gesturing to one of the seats. "Please take a seat."
Donald did as he was bid, sitting down in one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs, his back to the viewport. He didn't need to be distracted by the admittedly breath taking view. The other man seemed to understand what he'd done as he immediately sat down directly opposite him so they could see eye to eye instead of sitting at the head of the table.
"Then let us begin," Hank said calmly. Before beginning what was going to be a very long, and for Admiral Donald Hayes a very world shaking, explanation as to the Odyssey's presence here, her technology, what she represented and the fact that they came from another reality.
~~//~~
Thirty Minutes Later
"That's quite a story," Donald said after sitting in silence while this General Landry outlined a story that sounded like it came straight out of the pages of a science fiction novel. A part of him didn't want to believe it; stable wormholes to other planets through an ancient alien device called a Stargate, snake-like parasitic alien creatures that hijacked human bodies and strutted around the galaxy pretending to be the gods of antiquity. Higher dimensional life forms that wanted to convert the whole universe to a false religion just so they could gain more power from the very act of worship – though how that would work he had no idea – not to mention the apparent trans-dimensional travel this ship had been through.
It sounded… well… absolutely preposterous.
But he could tell it was the truth. He'd always had a knack for being able to tell if someone was lying to him or not, he could even tell if someone wasn't being entirely truthful. A human lie detector his late and dearly beloved wife, Sara, had called him on more than one occasion during the long years of their marriage. It was a skill that had served him well over the years, it had especially come in useful in dealing with Russo and his technocratic flunkies, and it told him now that General Landry hadn't been lying to him. Everything he'd said had been the absolute truth.
"Let's assume I believe you for a moment," he said after a few moments of silence. "What is it that you want from us?"
"A home," Landry answered plainly. "At present there is no known way back to our own reality from here and even with all the Asgard technology built into this ship there is no way Odyssey could sustain our full crew of two hundred and seven for more than a couple of months. After that our life support systems will start giving out. We're willing to offer you a lot in exchange."
"Such as," Donald asked, he already had some idea Landry was going to say as the only thing he really had to bargain with was the technology on this ship. Technology that when combined with their budding robotech science would go one hell of a long way towards protecting Earth from the threat of alien invasion.
"Technology," Landry replied, "as I said there is a lot of Asgard technology built into this ship as a last gift to us from our allies. Now in our reality the Asgard were one of the most technologically advanced and powerful races in the known universe, we're willing to share a great deal of that technology with you.
"Plus we've scanned the planet and detected the presence of a Stargate. It's in a glacial cave in Antarctica just like one of the gates in our world was, we haven't detected the other so if the Goa'uld did come to this world its likely Ra took it back with him when they were driven away," Landry continued. "I'm willing right now to use this ships transporters to recover the gate and its dialling device. We can show you how to use them."
"That's one hell of an incentive," Donald admitted knowing Russo and the others in the UEDC and in the UEG would be salivating at the thought of getting their hands on even some of this ships technology. "What about these Goa'uld, if we open this Stargate wouldn't we be under threat from them?"
"You would," Hank admitted. "But there are many worlds in the gate system, quite a few of which the Goa'uld have never touched. Many of which have treasures on them that make going through the gate well worth the occasional risk of bumping into some overly egomaniacal snakehead with appalling fashion sense and penchant for melodrama."
Donald couldn't help but chuckle at that description of a Goa'uld. "What kind of treasures," he asked.
"Three elements in particular naquada, neutronium and trinium. Though while we were rescuing the survivors from Sara Base we did scan the region and have noticed the planet does have significant deposits of trinium ore enough to satisfy any conceivable demand by Earth for at least a hundred years."
"Why those elements?" Donald asked wondering just what it was about those three elements that made them so valuable.
"You'll have to ask Colonel Carter if you want to know the exact science but naquada is one hell of a room temperature superconductor. Naquada can also be used to enhance energy reactions either for power generation purposes or for use in weapons. Neutronium is a very dense quasi-metallic element that is a key component for the fabrication of certain Asgard technologies like the subspace field coils of hyperspace drives – though if push comes to shove you can make them out of naquada instead – as well as a base material from which many forms of advanced nanotechnology can be created. As for trinium while it's brittle in its ore form when refined it produces a metal a hundred times stronger than titanium or carbon steel, a material harder than diamonds while being as light as aluminium sheeting. It's also got one of the highest thermal tolerances we've ever seen, especially when you alloy it with something like titanium or naquada."
Donald's eyes widened as the other man spoke. All three materials sounded very interesting. This naquada especially sounded like incredibly useful stuff and he could only imagine what they'd be able to do with it. The trinium also sounded like it would be incredibly useful especially if they could alloy it with titanium, it might even let them create materials with the same strengths as the alien metals on the SDF-1. Most of which had so far defied their best attempts at recreating, the synthetic alloys were just too complex for them to duplicate, with many using elements that were completely unknown to Earth science. The potential applications both civilian and military for both materials were myriad and far too numerous for him to imagine right now.
After a moment he sighed. "I'll have to talk to the UEG in New York about allowing you to settle here," he said at last, "you will probably have to swear some form of allegiance to the UEG or at least the Defence Council."
"I'm sure that something can be worked out," Hank replied "especially as the military is where we'll be the most useful to you I expect. I know Colonel Carter will probably already have some ideas in mind for improving your warships as no offense intended but for their size your destroyers seem to be somewhat underpowered. Not to mention they lack any form of defensive energy shielding."
"None taken," Donald answered. Thanks to his position he was fully, and uncomfortably, aware the Oberth-class destroyers and the still incomplete Armour One cruiser did have a fair few problems. Specifically relating to a lack of sufficient power generation as the hybrid fission-fusion reactors they were currently using to power them just weren't up to powering their robotech systems properly especially the weapons systems. Weapons which in live fire tests had shown themselves to have a much larger power draw than expected and – due to lack of sufficient power – an appallingly slow rate of fire being capable of only one or two shots a minute. The hope had been that the reverse engineering of reflex furnace technology would go some way to redressing that shortfall; though Donald didn't fool himself into thinking that a basic Earth-made version of a reflex furnace would be enough to solve the power generation issue, at least not completely. Now that he thought about it this naquada material – if it really had the described capabilities – could be just the thing they'd needed to finally solve that – and a few other – particularly thorny problems they'd been experiencing with their fleet designs.
Then something else Landry had said registered with him. "Energy shielding," Donald asked, "that's possible?"
"Of course," Hank answered, a faint smirk at the edge of his lips at surprising him yet again. "Like all of our warships the Odyssey has a series of very high powered force fields for defensive purposes as well as the ablative armour over the hull. Shields are quite a common technology where we're from. We will certainly share the technology with you."
"I see," Donald replied inwardly smiling at the thought of getting real trek-style energy shielding to protect their ships. Anything that improved the survivability of their warships, and the crews of said warships, whenever the giant aliens eventually turned up to either invade the planet or reclaim the SDF-1, would be incredibly welcome.
"Shields are just one technology we can provide you with the specifications for, we have a great many others," Hank added knowing the amount of data on various technologies was immense. Especially given the Asgard Core contained a complete copy of the Asgard races entire knowledge base. Though they would have to be careful not to give away too much, just in case they ever found a way to get home.
"I can imagine," Donald agreed wondering just what other technologies these people had at their command, technologies that they were willing to share with them in exchange for having a safe place to live while they searched for a way to return to their own reality. It was one hell of a good deal for them. "As I said I will have to speak with the UEG in New York about allowing you to settle here. Because of my position on the Defence Council I do have considerable influence with them I am fully willing to use that influence on your behalf."
"Thank you. If you have no further question I am fully prepared to transport you back down to the planet now. Unlike in some of the sci-fi shows you've no doubt seen we have no need to decloak in order to use our transporters."
"Before I return to the surface I'd like to talk to some of the survivors from Sara Base if I can," Donald replied.
"Is there anyone in particular that you want to speak to," Hank asked, "I can certainly have them brought here to see you."
"Colonel Rodriguez and Lisa would never forgive me if I didn't speak to Karl Riber and make sure he's alright," Donald asked.
Hank raised an eyebrow. "Lisa?" he queried.
"My daughter and Mr Riber's intended fiancé."
"I understand," Hank replied and he did understand somewhat where the other man was coming from. Any father would though he and his daughter, Carolyn had been estranged for years with their relationship only thawing after they'd both been posted to the SGC – albeit at different times as if they both had known that the other would be there they probably would never have agreed to be posted there. "I'll have them brought up here, though I might have to beam Mr Riber out of engineering if he won't come willingly. He's been discussing some aspects of our technology with Colonel Carter since shortly after we brought the survivors aboard."
"That sounds like him," Donald agreed an amused smirk appearing on his face. If there was one thing he knew about Karl Riber it was put a new technological puzzle to solve in front of him and you'd have his complete attention.
Well at least as long as that puzzle didn't obviously involve the development of advanced weapons technology, he thought, knowing Riber being firmly of the opinion that they had more than enough weapons as it was without needing anymore. Not to mention he had the naïve opinion that any species advanced enough to travel in space would have long ago advanced beyond the concept of violence. Though the alien attack on Sara Base has probably exposed that hope to be the naïve thing it was, he thought, technologically highly advanced the aliens who first built the SDF-1 might have been, peaceful they are not.
Hank standing up brought him out of his thoughts. "I'll leave you here then," he said, "and have Colonel Rodriguez and Mr Riber brought to see you. After that let the guard outside know and we'll transport you back down to the surface. Before they arrive do you want a drink or something?"
"Oh yes please, I'd love a coffee."
"I'll have some sent in for you," Hank replied before leaving the room to make the arrangements.
For his part Donald stood back up and went to the viewport and looked down upon Earth rotating majestically below the ship. It was true what they said, viewing Earth from space really made you appreciate both how beautiful and fragile their world was. A world that it was his job as the senior military officer on the UEDC to protect, to defend unto death if necessary. The technology of this ship could only help him do that. He would just have to convince the rest of the UEDC and the UEG to go along with it, which meant he had to go play politics – a prospect that made him want to groan in annoyance as he hated playing political games. The things I do to protect Earth, he thought with a resigned sigh before the sound of the door opening again caught his attention.
Turning in place he saw an air force rating come in carrying a tray on which sat a steaming mug of black coffee, a few mugs, a jug of milk, teaspoons and a bowl of sugar cubes. "Coffee for you sir," the rating said noticing him looking.
"Thank you put it on the table," Donald instructed.
"Yes sir," the rating acknowledged before carrying out the order and putting the tray, and its glorious smelling contents, down on the table. "Will there be anything else sir?"
"Not right now thank you. You're dismissed."
The rating nodded and left the room. Alone once again Donald immediately went to the table and poured himself a coffee with a generous helping of milk and his usual two sugars. Before sitting down to wait for his colleagues to arrive.
~~//~~
United Earth Defence Command
Alaska Base, Alaska
Sometime Later
Captain Henry Gloval paced back and forth along the command platform overlooking Alaska Base's situation room. It had been a few hours now since Admiral Hayes had been basically abducted by an unknown alien ship, whisked away by what was obviously some kind of transporter beam however impossible it sounded, followed by said ship mysteriously vanishing from orbit. So far they'd not been able to locate the vessel, both the orbiting destroyers and ground based stations had repeatedly scanned orbit searching for the ship.
They'd found nothing.
Which meant one of two things. Either the alien ship had left orbit through some means they couldn't detect or it was hiding behind some kind of cloaking system – a form of stealth technology that had long been ruled impossible and thus confined to the realms of science fiction. Either way the aliens – whoever and whatever they were – had Admiral Hayes creating a massive hole in planetary security. And to make matters worse the rest of the UEDC had put him in charge of dealing with it.
He'd been trying to do that ever since but no matter what he did nothing seemed to work and he was frankly coming to his wits end. If nothing changed soon then he would have to be the one who told Lieutenant Lisa Hayes that her father had gone missing, though he wouldn't be able to tell her how as the UEDC had already classified the existence of the alien transporter beam. Transporters and apparently cloaks being real, he thought not for the first time, what the hell is the world coming to when inventions previously only seen in shows like Star Trek show up in real life. How are we to deal with aliens who have that kind of technology? After all if they can beam someone out of somewhere they can easily beam a nuke or some other weapon into anywhere they want to.
He couldn't help but shudder at that prospect.
Abruptly a musical tone filled the air coming from the back of the command platform. The exact same musical tone that had preceded Admiral Hayes vanishing in a beam of silver-white light. He froze and spun around just in time to see a slender line of silver-white light appear. Almost instantly the beam expanded as something seemed to shoot down into it, making it flare brighter before with a crescendo vanishing…
…leaving behind one Admiral Donald Hayes.
"Whoa that's a rush," Donald said softly to himself as he recovered from the transport, being beamed somewhere was certainly a very novel experience but one he could easily get used to. He looked up before laughing out loud at the utterly gobsmacked look on the face of Henry Gloval. It was rare to see the normally almost unflappable Russian rendered so utterly speechless. "What's the matter, Henry cat got your tongue?"
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
... You do realize that any Military Organization that had this happen will immediately assume that the Admiral sent back to them is either an imposter or controlled or otherwise compromised in some fashion.
All that politicing Landry was trying to shortcut, he's just made it even worse and for at least a while utterly neutered anything Hayes might want to say in support. In a best case Hayes should be relieved of all authority until Landry convinces UEG that Odyssey is for real, in a worst case Landry has just destroyed Hayes Career.
If Landry wants to do a shortcut that isn't 99% likely to backfire, then beam down the Mars Base Commander to Alaska HQ to explain things and issue an invitation for people to visit Odyssey in a fashion that does not trigger every security reflex there is.
Please don't feel that you need to emulate the stupid writing that was so common in StarGate.
- Location
- Software
Actually I thought the same when I read it, it was better to use the saved people for the first contact.
And then I though "Meh its SG, they do that every day"
joe6168
Just a humble lurker
- Location
- Michigan, The lower left glove
This has been heavily commented on over at SB, and AJW said that he agrees and will start on a rewrite of the chapter, just so you know.
TimeDiver
Herald of Dis Lev
- Location
- In-between the parallel worlds...
A few others, including myself, have already posted rather pointed criticisms of that latest chapter on SB (with varying degrees of tact, or even lack thereof), including some offers of beta reader work.
It took an extremely blunt criticism (mea culpa) for ajw to truly acknowledge the flaws in his writing, but improvements in future chapter updates are now vastly more likely.
EDIT: Dammit! Ninja'd/Snipe'd/Stranger'd.
It took an extremely blunt criticism (mea culpa) for ajw to truly acknowledge the flaws in his writing, but improvements in future chapter updates are now vastly more likely.
EDIT: Dammit! Ninja'd/Snipe'd/Stranger'd.
Last edited:
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
This Isn't Kansas
Authors Notes: After some, admittedly well deserved, criticism of the original version of this chapter I decided to rewrite the whole thing. It also let me open up a whole new avenue of storytelling for the rest of the fic so thanks everyone on spacebattles who pointed out the flaws with the original version.
My personal thanks to Cyclone for acting as such a great beta reader/idea sounding board for this chapter. I wouldn't have been able to get this done so quickly without his help so thanks mate I owe you one.
~~~///~~~
Chapter Four V2
United Earth Defence Command
Alaska Base, Alaska
One Hour Later
Tension filled the air of the situation room.
Standing on the command platform, with Captain Henry Gloval – who'd been at the base delivering a report on an attempted AUL hijacking of a destroyer that he and some marines had foiled – beside him, Admiral Donald Hayes had a concerned frown on his face as he studied the long-range extra-orbital radar screens. For the last hour, they'd been tracking an unknown contact coming towards Earth from Mars... and coming at an incredibly high speed – a speed no human made ship could hope to rival.
Which meant that, whatever it was, it could only be alien in origin.
The fact that it was coming such a short time after communications had been lost both with Mars Base Sara and the Oberth was also cause for a great deal of concern. While there was no way to be sure at this time, it was very possible that the incoming vessel had destroyed both the ship and the Mars facility, a possibility that filled him with both professional and personal concern. Professional because, aside from two other Oberth-class destroyers, they had no spaceships capable of intercepting and stopping the intruder before it reached Earth orbit, and if it was hostile, there was no guarantee that just two destroyers would have the firepower to defeat it. Especially as Sara Base hadn't exactly been defenceless, having a number of ground to space missile launchers for defence and one of the first operational squadrons of Lancer II space fighters. Between them and the particle cannons and missiles on the Oberth, they should have been able to take out one hostile alien vessel. The fact that they hadn't raised the terrifying possibility that the aliens were even more powerful and dangerous than even their most pessimistic projections.
Privately, though, his concern was focused more on his daughter. If Sara Base had indeed been destroyed, then Karl Riber would certainly be dead, something that he knew would, when she learned about it, tear his little girl apart. He wasn't blind to how Lisa and Karl felt about one another and was well aware of the fact that when he returned to Earth that Karl had intended to ask for Lisa's hand in marriage, a union Donald personally had no real objection to. Karl was a good man who genuinely loved Lisa and had helped her considerably in the weeks and months that had followed her mother's brutal murder by Anti-Unification League fanatics. Oh, when asked for permission, he'd play the role of the father who wasn't quite convinced that the somewhat naive man was right for his little girl – as that was kind of the tradition with these things – but in the end, he'd give in as it would make Lisa so happy.
"It's slowing down," Gloval said from beside him, breaking him out of his thoughts. He turned his full attention back to the screens to see the Russian officer had spoken the truth. The unknown vessel had passed the moon and was now rapidly slowing down and coming around onto a vector that would clearly see it entering orbit. A high orbit but definitely an orbit. The Oberth destroyers Miranda and Circe were already altering their own orbits to intercept the intruder, an intruder that, now that it had slowed down, they were able to get more detailed sensor readings on.
It wasn't a large ship, roughly the same size as a Gibraltar-class supercarrier like his last command the Kenosha, but if the sensors on some of the orbital satellites were to be believed, its power signature was incredibly high; whatever its power source was, it was pumping out more energy every second than the entire continental United States did in nearly two days. Despite its small size, he shivered to think how extensive and devastating its firepower was; no doubt, it easily had enough weaponry to level a few cities from orbit. If the alien crew were to attack now, then the damage they could inflict didn't bear thinking about. And he could do nothing to prevent it. The UEDF had little to fight back with at this time; the reconstruction of the SDF-1 was only half complete, and aside from the destroyers, none of their other planned defences had even started construction yet. Well aside from Armour One that was, and she wasn't capable of leaving the L5 platform, so if a battle in orbit did erupt, she'd not be able to play any role in it – well, aside from giving the aliens some target practice.
"Sir, we're being scanned by the unknown vessel," one of the sensor techs reported.
"What kind of scan? Are they targeting?" Donald demanded, wondering how, if the aliens were hostile, they knew to target Alaska Base first, as taking them out would eliminate their command and control, effectively crippling their ability to defend the planet. What little ability they had right now.
"I don't believe so, sir," the technician answered. "From the profile, the scan appears to be a general ground scan only with no sign of the finer scanning required for weapons targeting. Sir, the scans have stopped."
"Looks like they were just checking us out," Gloval commented. "Either that, or they were trying to determine if we were a threat to them or not." Not that we would be a threat right now, he thought, knowing at its current altitude the alien ship would have little difficulty evading any surface-launched missiles fired at it.
Donald nodded in agreement with the Russian's assessment. It was a realistic one, he knew; the aliens, whoever they were, had just been cautious and wanted to see what they would do – whether they'd attempt to fire at them or not. He started to open his mouth to respond when one of the communications ratings emitted a small yelp, one full of such honest surprise that both senior officers turned their full attention to him.
"Admiral, tight-beam transmission from the alien ship on our primary comm array," the startled rating reported. "Transmission is flagging as alpha priority, Colonel Rodriguez's authentication."
Donald exchanged a look of mixed surprise and concern with Henry. The fact that the aliens were using such a tight focus signal to contact them was surprising, though it certainly explained why they'd scanned Alaska Base like that – they'd been looking for the array of radio antenna and satellite dishes that made up their primary communications array. What was concerning about it, however, was the fact that they had acquired Colonel Rodriguez's authentication codes. And Manuel had Top Secret clearance, he thought grimly. He had access to just about everything that wasn't classified Need to Know. If they got his authentication codes, what else did they get?
"Can you determine the nature of the transmission?" he asked after a moment.
"It's an audio loop, sir. In English."
This is just getting stranger and stranger, Donald thought. "Well, we better hear what they have to say. Put it on the speakers," he ordered.
"Aye, sir."
Immediately, the room's hidden speakers came to life, the line humming slightly with the sheer amount of power that was behind the transmission. Then a human voice began to speak, a very familiar human voice. "…repeat: This is Colonel Manuel Rodriguez of Mars Base Sara calling Alaska Base, please respond."
"Send authentication challenge immediately," Donald ordered.
"Aye, sir," the lieutenant in charge of communications acknowledged before opening a two way link with the orbiting alien vessel. "Colonel Rodriguez, this is Alaska Base. We read you, authenticate your ID immediately."
"Roger that, Alaska Base," Rodriguez answered immediately, sounding relieved that someone was finally on the other end of his comm line, before turning serious. "Authentication code: alpha, tango, niner, delta, dash, seven, seven, one, dash, delta, tango, three, alpha."
Well, that sounds correct, Donald thought glancing over at one of the operational security officers in the situation room for confirmation; as critical as Mars Base Sara was, he couldn't be expected to memorize every authentication code. The officer nodded back, confirming that the code was indeed the correct authentication code issued to Colonel Rodriguez and that the last grouping of the code indicated he was speaking freely without duress. As incredible as it seemed, the commanding officer of Mars Base Sara was aboard the alien ship.
"Put me on with him," Donald ordered, before looking at the listening Gloval. "Henry, listen in."
Gloval nodded in agreement even as the lights on two of the phones on the command platform terminal lit up, indicating they were now tied into the transmission. Both men picked one up and brought it to their ear, though it was only Donald who actually spoke. "This is Alaska Actual," he said.
"Admiral Hayes, sir. It's good to hear your voice," Rodriguez answered.
"Likewise, Colonel. Now then, Rodriguez, you have a great deal of explaining to do, starting with why Mars Base Sara and the Oberth have gone completely silent on all comm bands. Along with what the hell you're doing aboard an unknown alien ship."
"It's a very long story, sir, and not something we can really discuss over an open channel. I request permission to come down there and brief you in person," Rodriguez replied. "But first, let me assure you, sir, that this ship presents no threat to Earth; if they hadn't intervened on our behalf, then I would certainly be dead now, and so would everyone else from Sara and the Oberth."
Donald frowned slightly in thought. He could sort of see where Rodriguez was coming from about not wanting to discuss whatever fate had befallen Sara Base and the UES Oberth on this channel. Even though it was tight beam and had alpha priority encryption, there was always the risk that those Anti-Unification League fanatics would be able to listen in; they seemed to have spies and informants everywhere, these days. The last thing they wanted was for the AUL to get wind of some of the work they'd been doing on Sara Base, and they really didn't want the crew of the alien ship to know either.
"Very well, Colonel. Permission granted. I will inform landing control to expect your shuttle," he said after a few moments of silence.
"Thank you, sir, but there is no need to inform landing control; I will not be arriving by shuttle."
"Then how did you get aboard that ship in the first place, and how will you get planet side?" Donald asked. Somehow, he doubted that the alien crew would be willing to land their ship at this point in time, certainly not in the middle of a base teaming with heavily armed UEDF personnel. After all, they didn't know them yet, let alone have any reason to trust that they wouldn't take the opportunity to try and seize the ship. An action he would never order himself, though the aliens didn't have any way of knowing that, but there were some on the Defence Council who wouldn't be above trying to pull such a takeover attempt.
"These people have teleports… sorry… transporters sir. They used them to rescue myself and the other survivors and are willing to use them again to 'beam' me down as soon as I sign off with you."
Real life transporters, Donald thought in shock. This I've got to see. "Very well," he said. "I will see you in a few minutes, Colonel."
"Yes, sir. Rodriguez out." The communications link closed down with a click. Donald removed the phone from his ear and set it back on the console.
"What do you think, Henry?" he asked turning to look at the Russian slated to command the SDF-1 when her reconstruction was complete.
"To be honest, I'm not sure what to think," Gloval admitted. Indeed, he didn't know what to make of what he'd just heard. "I believe Colonel Rodriguez was speaking honestly; there were none of the normal code words in his speech to indicate he was under duress, at least. Still, it would be a good idea to have the medics examine him before debriefing him."
Donald nodded in agreement, as it was a sensible precaution. After all, they had no means of knowing what kind of methods aliens might have at coercing someone to say what they wanted them to say, means that could well bypass the normal procedures put in place to prevent coercion that all command level UEDF personnel knew off by heart. His gut said that Rodriguez wasn't being coerced, but it never hurt to be cautious.
Before he could speak again, a strange, ethereal musical tone filled the air... coming from somewhere behind him. Spinning around, both he and Gloval watched in shock as a slender, silver-white line appeared in the air. Almost instantly, the beam expanded as something seemed to shoot down into it, making it flare brighter before with a crescendo vanishing…
…leaving behind one Colonel Manuel Rodriguez.
~~//~~
Starboard Hanger Bay
USS Odyssey
A Few Hours Later
General Henry 'Hank' Landry felt like there were rattlesnakes performing a mating dance in his stomach as, clad in his dress blues, he arrived on the Odyssey's starboard hangar deck. In another few minutes, he and a small delegation would take the puddle jumper assigned to the Odyssey – in the aftermath of the Battle of the Supergate, the IOA had insisted that all Earth ships carry one of the advanced alien shuttles just in case they encountered a situation where the Asgard transporters were ineffective or rendered inoperable – down to Alaska Base for a face to face meeting with Admiral Hayes along with representatives of the United Earth Government.
A meeting that he knew had to go well for them as they needed a safe port to call home while Colonel Carter probed the Asgard core for anything that could get them home.
While things weren't bad, let alone critical, for them yet, he knew that Odyssey wouldn't be able to support her whole crew for more than a couple of months. The ship's life support systems, especially the atmosphere and waste recycling systems, had never been designed to accommodate so many for more than a few months at a time. Had there just been himself and a few others aboard, then the systems would have lasted for a few years, maybe even as long as the ship had power, but not with a full crew aboard. If they didn't find a safe harbour within six months, then life support would begin encountering problems.
He was hoping that safe harbour would be here. But he was already working on a contingency plan if they weren't able to secure safety here. There were, after all, a number of habitable planets in the galaxy where the Goa'uld either no longer had a presence or where the egotistical, megalomaniacal parasites had never stepped. Planets whose locations they had some idea of. They could always settle down on one of them if they had to – though it would be far from ideal if they were stuck there long term. After all, two hundred and seven people, the vast majority of them male, was not an ideal genetic base from which to build a colony. Of course, they could always look if one of the advanced predominantly human worlds they were familiar with, like Hebridan or Tollana, were present in this reality and if they were seek shelter with them. Though that presented its own problems, especially with regards to the legacy entrusted to their – to Earth's – care by the Asgard.
Whatever happens will happen, Hank, he told himself as he headed across the bay, past two F302's being prepped to fly escort, to where the puddle jumper sat waiting the rear ramp already down. Within seconds, he was entering the highly advanced Lantean engineered craft…
…to find Colonel Carter just closing up one of the control crystal trays.
"Is there a problem, Colonel?" he asked, hoping that there wasn't, as if there was, he would have to beam down, which was something he tried to avoid, just like he avoided going through the gate unless he absolutely had to; there was something about being converted into a molecular datastream and back again that gave him cold sweats.
"No, sir," Carter replied, much to his relief. "I was just finishing up converting the jumper's cloak generator into a shield. Given what Colonel Rodriguez said about these AUL people, it seemed like a sensible precaution."
Hank raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realise that was possible," he admitted as he couldn't recall any reports that such a modification was possible, though he read so many reports every day that he couldn't be expected to remember everything.
"It's perfectly possible, sir," Sam replied, "Radek and Rodney developed the modification last year; the resultant shield is reasonably strong, and because it's Lantean, it's capable of withstanding up to and including a direct drone weapon strike."
"Oh, yes, now I remember," he replied, recalling the mission report from when Asuran Replicators had briefly taken over Atlantis after a shipload of Ancients briefly reclaimed the city, evicting their expedition, prompting Colonel Sheppard along with Doctors McKay, Beckett, and Weir to take the only puddle jumper they'd had on Earth at the time on an unauthorised – and ultimately successful – mission to retake the city and evict its mechanical squatters. As he recalled, they'd used a similar modification then to withstand fire both from Asuran sidearms and a drone salvo the Ancient-version of the Replicators fired at them. "Good thinking," he complemented.
"Thank you, sir," Carter replied. "If you'll excuse me now, sir, I should head up to the bridge."
Hank nodded and watched as the blond haired genius accepted the silent dismissal and left the jumper. Since Colonel Mitchell would be piloting one of the two 302s that would escort the jumper down, Sam would be in command of the Odyssey while he was down on the surface. He resumed moving, heading into the cockpit where Lieutenant Peter Hawkins – one of only two ATA positive people on the entire ship – was waiting in the pilot's seat.
"Status, Lieutenant?" he asked, sliding into the co-pilot's seat.
"All systems reading as fully operational and flight ready, sir," Hawkins reported. "We're just waiting on Doctor Jackson and your marine escort to head down to Alaska Base."
"Then you need not wait any longer, Lieutenant," Daniel Jackson abruptly said from behind, making both men jump in their seats. Turning around, Hank saw that the bespectacled, dark haired archaeologist had arrived in the jumper without either of them being aware of it. A group of four marines had also arrived and were settling down in the bench-style seats in the rear compartment – all but one who operated the switch to close the door.
"Don't do that," Hank griped slightly. "What are you trying to do, Daniel, give me a heart attack or make the lieutenant fire off a drone inside the ship because you surprised us?"
"Sorry," Daniel replied with a slight wince. Hank shook his head and mentioned for the archaeologist/linguist/closest thing he had to a professional diplomat on board to take a seat. The younger man immediately did so, allowing Hank to turn back to Lt Hawkins.
"Lieutenant, contact the bridge and inform them that we're ready to launch," he ordered.
"Yes, sir," Hawkins acknowledged and hailed the bridge. "Jumper One to Bridge. We're secure and ready for take-off."
"Acknowledged, Jumper One," Major Marks replied from the bridge. "Escort reports ready as well. We are opening the hangar bay doors now. You're clear to launch. Good luck."
"Acknowledged, Bridge. Jumper One out."
As soon as Hawkins signed off with Marks, he turned his full attention to the jumper's controls, specifically the neural interface. With a thought, he brought the antigravity systems online, making the jumper rise until it was floating a few centimetres above the trinium-titanium hangar deck. With a few deft movements of the controls, he brought the jumper around until they were facing the open bay doors.
Gently easing the crystalline slide that served as the throttle forward, he guided the jumper across the deck until they were just before the currently invisible force field separating the deck from the harsh environment of space. A mental command had the drive pods extended and activated, and they felt a surge of acceleration the inertial dampers weren't quite able to immediately counter that pushed them all back in their seats as the cylindrical craft shot forward. With a flash, they were through the force field and in open space.
Hawkins kept his attention on the sensors as he waited for the two 302s to follow. A moment later, they did, shooting forward like bullets fired from a gun as the bay's electromagnetic catapults gave them the boost they needed to really get moving. Within seconds, the two fighters settled into formation just above and just behind the jumper, so with a thought, he set course for the planet rotating sedately several thousand kilometres below the Odyssey's keel. The advanced navigational systems of the jumper responded immediately, looping them down and away from the powerful Daedalus-class warship.
They were on their way to Alaska Base.
~~//~~
Situation Room
Alaska Base, Alaska
That Same Time
Admiral Donald Hayes had a faint smile on his face as the near-orbit radar screen showed three small contacts emerge from the larger contact that was the Odyssey. All three immediately vectored away from the extra-universal warship – a warship that, according to Rodriguez's report, blew an alien warship four or five times its size and mass to space dust with only a handful of blasts from its white-blue beam weapons – and came onto a trajectory that would see them enter Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Great Bear temperate rainforest that dominated large parts of Canada and Southern Alaska, which would eventually lead to them landing here at Alaska Base.
He had to admit he was still having trouble believing all that had happened in the last few hours. Rodriguez's debriefing – after the doctors had examined him and given him a completely clean bill of health – had been like something out of a science fiction show. A human warship, one of tremendous power and equipped with technology more advanced in some areas than even the SDF-1's, from another universe. It had, and still did, seem to be so absolutely incredible, but it seemed real. A USB drive containing some video files as well as sensor data from Mars Base Sara that Manuel had brought down with him proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever Earth had built the Odyssey, it wasn't their own.
The video and sensor data had been astonishing. The defensive force field around the Odyssey that had shrugged off a truly staggering amount of firepower from the alien warship that attacked Sara Base – and destroyed the UES Oberth – as if it was nothing was amazing. According to the sensors, the field strength had not fluctuated at all as the alien weapons fire tore at it. Then there were the records of the Odyssey firing back, firing beams which, according to the sensors, were composed of plasma but compressed and supercharged somehow into a laser-fine energy beam. A plasma that defied the base's sensors ability to analyse, though its power was obvious as it cut through the alien armour like it was wet paper to rip the ship apart.
Those files and Manuel's testimony of some of the things he'd seen aboard Odyssey as they treated the survivors of Sara Base and the Oberth had convinced both the Defence Council and their direct superiors in the United Earth Government that they needed to make friends with that ship's crew. The technology of the Odyssey, if they were willing to share it with them, would go a long way towards ensuring the safety and security of this planet whenever the giant aliens returned. And then there were those Goa'uld aliens that Rodriguez had mentioned, the very thought of such an evil, parasitic species existing was enough to give all of the members of the UEDC the creeping horrors. Especially as the presence of pyramids in Egypt showed that there was, unfortunately, a damned good chance that they existed in this reality as well. Odyssey's technology would go a very long way towards protecting against them as well.
Hence why they'd invited General Landry to come down here to discuss the possibility of an alliance with them. From what Manuel had said, the other man probably wouldn't want very much from them, beyond a promise of a safe haven for his ship and crew, but was open to the idea of providing them with some of his ship's advanced technology. I just hope all our reps get here in time, he thought, given how short notice this meeting is. I know the other service chiefs will be here on time -- especially Hiro; he's never late for anything, even if does mean scrambling halfway around the planet in a Star Goose -- but Russo and the others… His lips thinned. If they're late... well, I don't see that going down well.
"Admiral," one of the radar station ratings called out, jolting him out of his thoughts. "The shuttlecraft from Odyssey has entered the atmosphere. We estimate that they will land here within the next twelve minutes."
"Understood," Donald acknowledged before going to pick up the phone to alert landing control to be ready for the incoming shuttle and its fighter escort. Before he could lift the receiver, however, multiple radar screens chimed warnings. "What is it?" he demanded.
"Admiral, we've got bogies coming in from off shore," the lieutenant in charge of the radar section called out, his voice thick with urgency. "Silhouette indicates they're AUL birds, MiM-31 Karyovins."
Shit, Donald thought, that's the last thing we need. "How many, and what's their trajectory?" he demanded.
"We're detecting at least one full squadron, sir. Sir, they're on course to intercept the flight of aircraft coming down from the Odyssey."
"Damn it," Donald cursed before turning to the air combat coordinator. "Jeff, get our birds up there now, intercept those bastards and blow them out of the sky. We can't allow them to interfere with the meeting with General Landry."
"Aye, sir," Colonel Jeffrey Conrad acknowledged, turning to his own section and barking out the appropriate orders.
"Communications, contact the Odyssey's shuttle and advise them that they have AUL bandits closing in on their position," Donald barked at one of the comm techs.
"Aye, sir."
As the situation room turned into a hive of activity, Donald took a look at one of the radar repeater screens, a screen that now showed a mass of red chevrons indicating the squadron of Karyovin fighters heading towards the projected course path of the Odyssey's shuttle and its escorting fighters. Fighters that – if they were anything like their Lancer fighters – weren't really designed to fly combat inside the atmosphere.
"Bozhe moi! How did they know?" Gloval muttered behind him.
"I don't know, Henry," Donald admitted before turning to look at the other man, and the Russian officer could see the anger at the AUL's interference in this matter burning in his eyes. "But I fully intend to find out."
Henry nodded in understanding before looking at the radar screens himself, grimacing slightly as it was obvious to anyone with even a basic knowledge of air combat that the Karyovins would reach the projected path of Odyssey's shuttle before the F203 Dragon-II fighters that would now be scrambling from the base's runways could intercept them. Intercept them and shoot the unwelcome interlopers out of the sky. God be with you, he thought to the three green chevrons indicating the alien craft. Something tells me that you're going to need it.
Authors Notes: After some, admittedly well deserved, criticism of the original version of this chapter I decided to rewrite the whole thing. It also let me open up a whole new avenue of storytelling for the rest of the fic so thanks everyone on spacebattles who pointed out the flaws with the original version.
My personal thanks to Cyclone for acting as such a great beta reader/idea sounding board for this chapter. I wouldn't have been able to get this done so quickly without his help so thanks mate I owe you one.
~~~///~~~
Chapter Four V2
United Earth Defence Command
Alaska Base, Alaska
One Hour Later
Tension filled the air of the situation room.
Standing on the command platform, with Captain Henry Gloval – who'd been at the base delivering a report on an attempted AUL hijacking of a destroyer that he and some marines had foiled – beside him, Admiral Donald Hayes had a concerned frown on his face as he studied the long-range extra-orbital radar screens. For the last hour, they'd been tracking an unknown contact coming towards Earth from Mars... and coming at an incredibly high speed – a speed no human made ship could hope to rival.
Which meant that, whatever it was, it could only be alien in origin.
The fact that it was coming such a short time after communications had been lost both with Mars Base Sara and the Oberth was also cause for a great deal of concern. While there was no way to be sure at this time, it was very possible that the incoming vessel had destroyed both the ship and the Mars facility, a possibility that filled him with both professional and personal concern. Professional because, aside from two other Oberth-class destroyers, they had no spaceships capable of intercepting and stopping the intruder before it reached Earth orbit, and if it was hostile, there was no guarantee that just two destroyers would have the firepower to defeat it. Especially as Sara Base hadn't exactly been defenceless, having a number of ground to space missile launchers for defence and one of the first operational squadrons of Lancer II space fighters. Between them and the particle cannons and missiles on the Oberth, they should have been able to take out one hostile alien vessel. The fact that they hadn't raised the terrifying possibility that the aliens were even more powerful and dangerous than even their most pessimistic projections.
Privately, though, his concern was focused more on his daughter. If Sara Base had indeed been destroyed, then Karl Riber would certainly be dead, something that he knew would, when she learned about it, tear his little girl apart. He wasn't blind to how Lisa and Karl felt about one another and was well aware of the fact that when he returned to Earth that Karl had intended to ask for Lisa's hand in marriage, a union Donald personally had no real objection to. Karl was a good man who genuinely loved Lisa and had helped her considerably in the weeks and months that had followed her mother's brutal murder by Anti-Unification League fanatics. Oh, when asked for permission, he'd play the role of the father who wasn't quite convinced that the somewhat naive man was right for his little girl – as that was kind of the tradition with these things – but in the end, he'd give in as it would make Lisa so happy.
"It's slowing down," Gloval said from beside him, breaking him out of his thoughts. He turned his full attention back to the screens to see the Russian officer had spoken the truth. The unknown vessel had passed the moon and was now rapidly slowing down and coming around onto a vector that would clearly see it entering orbit. A high orbit but definitely an orbit. The Oberth destroyers Miranda and Circe were already altering their own orbits to intercept the intruder, an intruder that, now that it had slowed down, they were able to get more detailed sensor readings on.
It wasn't a large ship, roughly the same size as a Gibraltar-class supercarrier like his last command the Kenosha, but if the sensors on some of the orbital satellites were to be believed, its power signature was incredibly high; whatever its power source was, it was pumping out more energy every second than the entire continental United States did in nearly two days. Despite its small size, he shivered to think how extensive and devastating its firepower was; no doubt, it easily had enough weaponry to level a few cities from orbit. If the alien crew were to attack now, then the damage they could inflict didn't bear thinking about. And he could do nothing to prevent it. The UEDF had little to fight back with at this time; the reconstruction of the SDF-1 was only half complete, and aside from the destroyers, none of their other planned defences had even started construction yet. Well aside from Armour One that was, and she wasn't capable of leaving the L5 platform, so if a battle in orbit did erupt, she'd not be able to play any role in it – well, aside from giving the aliens some target practice.
"Sir, we're being scanned by the unknown vessel," one of the sensor techs reported.
"What kind of scan? Are they targeting?" Donald demanded, wondering how, if the aliens were hostile, they knew to target Alaska Base first, as taking them out would eliminate their command and control, effectively crippling their ability to defend the planet. What little ability they had right now.
"I don't believe so, sir," the technician answered. "From the profile, the scan appears to be a general ground scan only with no sign of the finer scanning required for weapons targeting. Sir, the scans have stopped."
"Looks like they were just checking us out," Gloval commented. "Either that, or they were trying to determine if we were a threat to them or not." Not that we would be a threat right now, he thought, knowing at its current altitude the alien ship would have little difficulty evading any surface-launched missiles fired at it.
Donald nodded in agreement with the Russian's assessment. It was a realistic one, he knew; the aliens, whoever they were, had just been cautious and wanted to see what they would do – whether they'd attempt to fire at them or not. He started to open his mouth to respond when one of the communications ratings emitted a small yelp, one full of such honest surprise that both senior officers turned their full attention to him.
"Admiral, tight-beam transmission from the alien ship on our primary comm array," the startled rating reported. "Transmission is flagging as alpha priority, Colonel Rodriguez's authentication."
Donald exchanged a look of mixed surprise and concern with Henry. The fact that the aliens were using such a tight focus signal to contact them was surprising, though it certainly explained why they'd scanned Alaska Base like that – they'd been looking for the array of radio antenna and satellite dishes that made up their primary communications array. What was concerning about it, however, was the fact that they had acquired Colonel Rodriguez's authentication codes. And Manuel had Top Secret clearance, he thought grimly. He had access to just about everything that wasn't classified Need to Know. If they got his authentication codes, what else did they get?
"Can you determine the nature of the transmission?" he asked after a moment.
"It's an audio loop, sir. In English."
This is just getting stranger and stranger, Donald thought. "Well, we better hear what they have to say. Put it on the speakers," he ordered.
"Aye, sir."
Immediately, the room's hidden speakers came to life, the line humming slightly with the sheer amount of power that was behind the transmission. Then a human voice began to speak, a very familiar human voice. "…repeat: This is Colonel Manuel Rodriguez of Mars Base Sara calling Alaska Base, please respond."
"Send authentication challenge immediately," Donald ordered.
"Aye, sir," the lieutenant in charge of communications acknowledged before opening a two way link with the orbiting alien vessel. "Colonel Rodriguez, this is Alaska Base. We read you, authenticate your ID immediately."
"Roger that, Alaska Base," Rodriguez answered immediately, sounding relieved that someone was finally on the other end of his comm line, before turning serious. "Authentication code: alpha, tango, niner, delta, dash, seven, seven, one, dash, delta, tango, three, alpha."
Well, that sounds correct, Donald thought glancing over at one of the operational security officers in the situation room for confirmation; as critical as Mars Base Sara was, he couldn't be expected to memorize every authentication code. The officer nodded back, confirming that the code was indeed the correct authentication code issued to Colonel Rodriguez and that the last grouping of the code indicated he was speaking freely without duress. As incredible as it seemed, the commanding officer of Mars Base Sara was aboard the alien ship.
"Put me on with him," Donald ordered, before looking at the listening Gloval. "Henry, listen in."
Gloval nodded in agreement even as the lights on two of the phones on the command platform terminal lit up, indicating they were now tied into the transmission. Both men picked one up and brought it to their ear, though it was only Donald who actually spoke. "This is Alaska Actual," he said.
"Admiral Hayes, sir. It's good to hear your voice," Rodriguez answered.
"Likewise, Colonel. Now then, Rodriguez, you have a great deal of explaining to do, starting with why Mars Base Sara and the Oberth have gone completely silent on all comm bands. Along with what the hell you're doing aboard an unknown alien ship."
"It's a very long story, sir, and not something we can really discuss over an open channel. I request permission to come down there and brief you in person," Rodriguez replied. "But first, let me assure you, sir, that this ship presents no threat to Earth; if they hadn't intervened on our behalf, then I would certainly be dead now, and so would everyone else from Sara and the Oberth."
Donald frowned slightly in thought. He could sort of see where Rodriguez was coming from about not wanting to discuss whatever fate had befallen Sara Base and the UES Oberth on this channel. Even though it was tight beam and had alpha priority encryption, there was always the risk that those Anti-Unification League fanatics would be able to listen in; they seemed to have spies and informants everywhere, these days. The last thing they wanted was for the AUL to get wind of some of the work they'd been doing on Sara Base, and they really didn't want the crew of the alien ship to know either.
"Very well, Colonel. Permission granted. I will inform landing control to expect your shuttle," he said after a few moments of silence.
"Thank you, sir, but there is no need to inform landing control; I will not be arriving by shuttle."
"Then how did you get aboard that ship in the first place, and how will you get planet side?" Donald asked. Somehow, he doubted that the alien crew would be willing to land their ship at this point in time, certainly not in the middle of a base teaming with heavily armed UEDF personnel. After all, they didn't know them yet, let alone have any reason to trust that they wouldn't take the opportunity to try and seize the ship. An action he would never order himself, though the aliens didn't have any way of knowing that, but there were some on the Defence Council who wouldn't be above trying to pull such a takeover attempt.
"These people have teleports… sorry… transporters sir. They used them to rescue myself and the other survivors and are willing to use them again to 'beam' me down as soon as I sign off with you."
Real life transporters, Donald thought in shock. This I've got to see. "Very well," he said. "I will see you in a few minutes, Colonel."
"Yes, sir. Rodriguez out." The communications link closed down with a click. Donald removed the phone from his ear and set it back on the console.
"What do you think, Henry?" he asked turning to look at the Russian slated to command the SDF-1 when her reconstruction was complete.
"To be honest, I'm not sure what to think," Gloval admitted. Indeed, he didn't know what to make of what he'd just heard. "I believe Colonel Rodriguez was speaking honestly; there were none of the normal code words in his speech to indicate he was under duress, at least. Still, it would be a good idea to have the medics examine him before debriefing him."
Donald nodded in agreement, as it was a sensible precaution. After all, they had no means of knowing what kind of methods aliens might have at coercing someone to say what they wanted them to say, means that could well bypass the normal procedures put in place to prevent coercion that all command level UEDF personnel knew off by heart. His gut said that Rodriguez wasn't being coerced, but it never hurt to be cautious.
Before he could speak again, a strange, ethereal musical tone filled the air... coming from somewhere behind him. Spinning around, both he and Gloval watched in shock as a slender, silver-white line appeared in the air. Almost instantly, the beam expanded as something seemed to shoot down into it, making it flare brighter before with a crescendo vanishing…
…leaving behind one Colonel Manuel Rodriguez.
~~//~~
Starboard Hanger Bay
USS Odyssey
A Few Hours Later
General Henry 'Hank' Landry felt like there were rattlesnakes performing a mating dance in his stomach as, clad in his dress blues, he arrived on the Odyssey's starboard hangar deck. In another few minutes, he and a small delegation would take the puddle jumper assigned to the Odyssey – in the aftermath of the Battle of the Supergate, the IOA had insisted that all Earth ships carry one of the advanced alien shuttles just in case they encountered a situation where the Asgard transporters were ineffective or rendered inoperable – down to Alaska Base for a face to face meeting with Admiral Hayes along with representatives of the United Earth Government.
A meeting that he knew had to go well for them as they needed a safe port to call home while Colonel Carter probed the Asgard core for anything that could get them home.
While things weren't bad, let alone critical, for them yet, he knew that Odyssey wouldn't be able to support her whole crew for more than a couple of months. The ship's life support systems, especially the atmosphere and waste recycling systems, had never been designed to accommodate so many for more than a few months at a time. Had there just been himself and a few others aboard, then the systems would have lasted for a few years, maybe even as long as the ship had power, but not with a full crew aboard. If they didn't find a safe harbour within six months, then life support would begin encountering problems.
He was hoping that safe harbour would be here. But he was already working on a contingency plan if they weren't able to secure safety here. There were, after all, a number of habitable planets in the galaxy where the Goa'uld either no longer had a presence or where the egotistical, megalomaniacal parasites had never stepped. Planets whose locations they had some idea of. They could always settle down on one of them if they had to – though it would be far from ideal if they were stuck there long term. After all, two hundred and seven people, the vast majority of them male, was not an ideal genetic base from which to build a colony. Of course, they could always look if one of the advanced predominantly human worlds they were familiar with, like Hebridan or Tollana, were present in this reality and if they were seek shelter with them. Though that presented its own problems, especially with regards to the legacy entrusted to their – to Earth's – care by the Asgard.
Whatever happens will happen, Hank, he told himself as he headed across the bay, past two F302's being prepped to fly escort, to where the puddle jumper sat waiting the rear ramp already down. Within seconds, he was entering the highly advanced Lantean engineered craft…
…to find Colonel Carter just closing up one of the control crystal trays.
"Is there a problem, Colonel?" he asked, hoping that there wasn't, as if there was, he would have to beam down, which was something he tried to avoid, just like he avoided going through the gate unless he absolutely had to; there was something about being converted into a molecular datastream and back again that gave him cold sweats.
"No, sir," Carter replied, much to his relief. "I was just finishing up converting the jumper's cloak generator into a shield. Given what Colonel Rodriguez said about these AUL people, it seemed like a sensible precaution."
Hank raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realise that was possible," he admitted as he couldn't recall any reports that such a modification was possible, though he read so many reports every day that he couldn't be expected to remember everything.
"It's perfectly possible, sir," Sam replied, "Radek and Rodney developed the modification last year; the resultant shield is reasonably strong, and because it's Lantean, it's capable of withstanding up to and including a direct drone weapon strike."
"Oh, yes, now I remember," he replied, recalling the mission report from when Asuran Replicators had briefly taken over Atlantis after a shipload of Ancients briefly reclaimed the city, evicting their expedition, prompting Colonel Sheppard along with Doctors McKay, Beckett, and Weir to take the only puddle jumper they'd had on Earth at the time on an unauthorised – and ultimately successful – mission to retake the city and evict its mechanical squatters. As he recalled, they'd used a similar modification then to withstand fire both from Asuran sidearms and a drone salvo the Ancient-version of the Replicators fired at them. "Good thinking," he complemented.
"Thank you, sir," Carter replied. "If you'll excuse me now, sir, I should head up to the bridge."
Hank nodded and watched as the blond haired genius accepted the silent dismissal and left the jumper. Since Colonel Mitchell would be piloting one of the two 302s that would escort the jumper down, Sam would be in command of the Odyssey while he was down on the surface. He resumed moving, heading into the cockpit where Lieutenant Peter Hawkins – one of only two ATA positive people on the entire ship – was waiting in the pilot's seat.
"Status, Lieutenant?" he asked, sliding into the co-pilot's seat.
"All systems reading as fully operational and flight ready, sir," Hawkins reported. "We're just waiting on Doctor Jackson and your marine escort to head down to Alaska Base."
"Then you need not wait any longer, Lieutenant," Daniel Jackson abruptly said from behind, making both men jump in their seats. Turning around, Hank saw that the bespectacled, dark haired archaeologist had arrived in the jumper without either of them being aware of it. A group of four marines had also arrived and were settling down in the bench-style seats in the rear compartment – all but one who operated the switch to close the door.
"Don't do that," Hank griped slightly. "What are you trying to do, Daniel, give me a heart attack or make the lieutenant fire off a drone inside the ship because you surprised us?"
"Sorry," Daniel replied with a slight wince. Hank shook his head and mentioned for the archaeologist/linguist/closest thing he had to a professional diplomat on board to take a seat. The younger man immediately did so, allowing Hank to turn back to Lt Hawkins.
"Lieutenant, contact the bridge and inform them that we're ready to launch," he ordered.
"Yes, sir," Hawkins acknowledged and hailed the bridge. "Jumper One to Bridge. We're secure and ready for take-off."
"Acknowledged, Jumper One," Major Marks replied from the bridge. "Escort reports ready as well. We are opening the hangar bay doors now. You're clear to launch. Good luck."
"Acknowledged, Bridge. Jumper One out."
As soon as Hawkins signed off with Marks, he turned his full attention to the jumper's controls, specifically the neural interface. With a thought, he brought the antigravity systems online, making the jumper rise until it was floating a few centimetres above the trinium-titanium hangar deck. With a few deft movements of the controls, he brought the jumper around until they were facing the open bay doors.
Gently easing the crystalline slide that served as the throttle forward, he guided the jumper across the deck until they were just before the currently invisible force field separating the deck from the harsh environment of space. A mental command had the drive pods extended and activated, and they felt a surge of acceleration the inertial dampers weren't quite able to immediately counter that pushed them all back in their seats as the cylindrical craft shot forward. With a flash, they were through the force field and in open space.
Hawkins kept his attention on the sensors as he waited for the two 302s to follow. A moment later, they did, shooting forward like bullets fired from a gun as the bay's electromagnetic catapults gave them the boost they needed to really get moving. Within seconds, the two fighters settled into formation just above and just behind the jumper, so with a thought, he set course for the planet rotating sedately several thousand kilometres below the Odyssey's keel. The advanced navigational systems of the jumper responded immediately, looping them down and away from the powerful Daedalus-class warship.
They were on their way to Alaska Base.
~~//~~
Situation Room
Alaska Base, Alaska
That Same Time
Admiral Donald Hayes had a faint smile on his face as the near-orbit radar screen showed three small contacts emerge from the larger contact that was the Odyssey. All three immediately vectored away from the extra-universal warship – a warship that, according to Rodriguez's report, blew an alien warship four or five times its size and mass to space dust with only a handful of blasts from its white-blue beam weapons – and came onto a trajectory that would see them enter Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Great Bear temperate rainforest that dominated large parts of Canada and Southern Alaska, which would eventually lead to them landing here at Alaska Base.
He had to admit he was still having trouble believing all that had happened in the last few hours. Rodriguez's debriefing – after the doctors had examined him and given him a completely clean bill of health – had been like something out of a science fiction show. A human warship, one of tremendous power and equipped with technology more advanced in some areas than even the SDF-1's, from another universe. It had, and still did, seem to be so absolutely incredible, but it seemed real. A USB drive containing some video files as well as sensor data from Mars Base Sara that Manuel had brought down with him proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever Earth had built the Odyssey, it wasn't their own.
The video and sensor data had been astonishing. The defensive force field around the Odyssey that had shrugged off a truly staggering amount of firepower from the alien warship that attacked Sara Base – and destroyed the UES Oberth – as if it was nothing was amazing. According to the sensors, the field strength had not fluctuated at all as the alien weapons fire tore at it. Then there were the records of the Odyssey firing back, firing beams which, according to the sensors, were composed of plasma but compressed and supercharged somehow into a laser-fine energy beam. A plasma that defied the base's sensors ability to analyse, though its power was obvious as it cut through the alien armour like it was wet paper to rip the ship apart.
Those files and Manuel's testimony of some of the things he'd seen aboard Odyssey as they treated the survivors of Sara Base and the Oberth had convinced both the Defence Council and their direct superiors in the United Earth Government that they needed to make friends with that ship's crew. The technology of the Odyssey, if they were willing to share it with them, would go a long way towards ensuring the safety and security of this planet whenever the giant aliens returned. And then there were those Goa'uld aliens that Rodriguez had mentioned, the very thought of such an evil, parasitic species existing was enough to give all of the members of the UEDC the creeping horrors. Especially as the presence of pyramids in Egypt showed that there was, unfortunately, a damned good chance that they existed in this reality as well. Odyssey's technology would go a very long way towards protecting against them as well.
Hence why they'd invited General Landry to come down here to discuss the possibility of an alliance with them. From what Manuel had said, the other man probably wouldn't want very much from them, beyond a promise of a safe haven for his ship and crew, but was open to the idea of providing them with some of his ship's advanced technology. I just hope all our reps get here in time, he thought, given how short notice this meeting is. I know the other service chiefs will be here on time -- especially Hiro; he's never late for anything, even if does mean scrambling halfway around the planet in a Star Goose -- but Russo and the others… His lips thinned. If they're late... well, I don't see that going down well.
"Admiral," one of the radar station ratings called out, jolting him out of his thoughts. "The shuttlecraft from Odyssey has entered the atmosphere. We estimate that they will land here within the next twelve minutes."
"Understood," Donald acknowledged before going to pick up the phone to alert landing control to be ready for the incoming shuttle and its fighter escort. Before he could lift the receiver, however, multiple radar screens chimed warnings. "What is it?" he demanded.
"Admiral, we've got bogies coming in from off shore," the lieutenant in charge of the radar section called out, his voice thick with urgency. "Silhouette indicates they're AUL birds, MiM-31 Karyovins."
Shit, Donald thought, that's the last thing we need. "How many, and what's their trajectory?" he demanded.
"We're detecting at least one full squadron, sir. Sir, they're on course to intercept the flight of aircraft coming down from the Odyssey."
"Damn it," Donald cursed before turning to the air combat coordinator. "Jeff, get our birds up there now, intercept those bastards and blow them out of the sky. We can't allow them to interfere with the meeting with General Landry."
"Aye, sir," Colonel Jeffrey Conrad acknowledged, turning to his own section and barking out the appropriate orders.
"Communications, contact the Odyssey's shuttle and advise them that they have AUL bandits closing in on their position," Donald barked at one of the comm techs.
"Aye, sir."
As the situation room turned into a hive of activity, Donald took a look at one of the radar repeater screens, a screen that now showed a mass of red chevrons indicating the squadron of Karyovin fighters heading towards the projected course path of the Odyssey's shuttle and its escorting fighters. Fighters that – if they were anything like their Lancer fighters – weren't really designed to fly combat inside the atmosphere.
"Bozhe moi! How did they know?" Gloval muttered behind him.
"I don't know, Henry," Donald admitted before turning to look at the other man, and the Russian officer could see the anger at the AUL's interference in this matter burning in his eyes. "But I fully intend to find out."
Henry nodded in understanding before looking at the radar screens himself, grimacing slightly as it was obvious to anyone with even a basic knowledge of air combat that the Karyovins would reach the projected path of Odyssey's shuttle before the F203 Dragon-II fighters that would now be scrambling from the base's runways could intercept them. Intercept them and shoot the unwelcome interlopers out of the sky. God be with you, he thought to the three green chevrons indicating the alien craft. Something tells me that you're going to need it.
F-302 are definitely designed to fly in atmosphere.
Yeah no. Drone weapons are just that awesome; a puddle jumper took out a wraith hive before. They can also fly through one target and then reacquire a new one until they run out of power.
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
Admiral Hayes is only thinking from their own space fighter design the Lancer which isn't capable of atmospheric flight. Of course the 302's are capable of atmospheric combat but this is slightly different to any fight the 302's have been in before. Before they've always been used against species who aren't the best or most imaginative of combat pilots i.e Jaffa and soldier caste Wraith, but now they'll be flying and fighting against pilots who are every bit as good at combat flying as they are.
Plus the AUL does have an advantage in they have superior numbers and a lot more weapons considering a Karyovin has 6 missiles to a 302's 4.
You're forgetting though that jumper launched drones likely have much less power than drones launched from an outpost, ship or Atlantis due to the more limited power source of a puddle jumper. Thus they likely can only take out one target plus a Jumper can only usually - depending on how good the pilot is with the neural interface - fire two or three drones at a time and have them track targets.
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
On top of little things like evading incoming fire and any nearby mountains if they go too low.