(Jumper One – Desert Moon – 2 September 2016, 1050)
The New Asuran shuttle was about the same size as the Puddle Jumper. It was oval shaped with a large window in the front, a hatch in the back and retractable – cylinder shaped – engines. It was clear that the design had been inspired by the Jumper. Before Aranov could ponder it further, the hatch opened and four Asurans walked out. Two of them were male and two were female. The males and one of the females were Caucasian, while the last member of the team would have been called Asian back home. He could not see what color their hair was, because they were all wearing helmets. As for the rest of their clothes…they were all wearing tan BDU-like uniforms above tan boots.
The Asian looking female approached Aranov. He looked at Mehra, who was looking very calm, but still keeping her finger near the trigger of her weapon. Grogan was not so good at hiding his nerves. His hand was on his holster and ready to pull his sidearm. Aranov gave them both a look that told them to keep their cool and that he would not tolerate any unauthorized moves.
“Doctor Aranov ?”
“That’s me.” Aranov began. “And you are ?”
“I am Claudia, I am the Chief Science Officer aboard the Defender. And this are Victoria, she is the head of Security. Peter is the ranking pilot…” She gestured towards one of the males. He had green eyes and looked like a human in his thirties. “….and Henry is a member of our medical staff.” Henry had brown eyes and appeared like a human in his fifties.
“You have a medical staff ?” Guskov asked. “I thought Asurans and New Asurans we not susceptible to diseases.”
“This is Doctor Guskov and he is the Chief Medical Officer of our ship.” Aranov said, before introducing Mehra and Grogan. Then he turned back to Claudia. “Now, about the doctor’s question…”
“Well, we didn’t have any when we left the Pegasus Galaxy. But when we got here…well, we discovered that life is way more adaptable and hostile then we thought the hard way. Including run-ins with three very nasty metal eating species of bacteria.”
“Metal eating bacteria ?” Guskov said. “Out here ?”
“I’ll see to it that you get the files, doctor. But trust me, you do not want these germs about Nova Roma.” Claudia decided to change the subject. “So, how do you want to go about this ? We didn’t scan anything useful on the way down.”
Aranov looked around. The moon was one giant – and hot - expanse of white sand. But they had to get this mission started somehow. So he made a call. “I suggest we head north-west…” He pointed in the proper direction. “….because there is a large dune about fifteen minutes of walking in that direction. We might be able to see something useful from the top.”
“Sounds like a plan to me.” Claudia turned to her team. “Peter, Victoria, you take the lead…”
“Mehra, Grogan, you cover the rear.”
There were tense nods of understanding. Everybody took his or her position and they headed out. As they did so, Aranov bit his lower lip. So far, the mission was going smoothly. But he could sense the tension in the air. One spark, one misstep and this whole thing would turn really nasty fast. They were carrying standard issues guns – P90’s and Beretta M9s – and not Anti-Replicator Guns. (ARG’s were energy weapons that made replicators fall apart.) And Asurans were bulletproof, so their chances were not good…
(NAS Defender – Bridge – 2 September 2016, 1050)
The New Asuran Ship Defender was an impressive vessel. Colson had read reports about the Aurora-class, but to see it first hand was really something. The bridge was the last stop on the tour. When they entered it, Captain Parron was sitting in the center seat. Her crew was busy working the consoles as she gave orders.
“How is the mission going, Captain ?” Colson asked.
“They’ve just landed and met up.” Parron began. “As for orbital scans, all they show is sand, sand and more sand. There are no signs of inhabitation down there.”
“Have you explored this system before ?” Porter asked.
“We have a basic chart, but we never explored it in detail.” Parron said. “We’ve never had a reason to do so.”
“Do you have basic charts of every solar system in the galaxy ?” Colson asked.
“Yes, and a few of solar systems outside this galaxy. Those systems were used as rest stops by the three ships we send to reach Destiny.” Parron leaned back in her chair. “It took thousands of years to chart this galaxy to that level. We call it the Hope Galaxy. It seemed fitting at the time. That and the transport we used to get here was called Hope.”
“I like it.” Porter said. “So what was it like when you got here ?”
“Pretty harsh. We picked the most fertile planets to settle on and even the most fertile one of that only had four species of plant and two species of insect. So we transplanted every species of life we found during our exploration to our planets. It took a bit of doing, but now they all have the same ecosystem. Which is still pretty limited.”
“How do you define pretty limited ?”
“Eleven species of plants, four species of insects and one species of similar to what I believe you call a cow.” Parron said. “And of course, New Asurans.” She said with a smile.
“Not counting microscopic lifeforms, I presume ?” Porter said.
“True, there are plenty of those.”
“What about the Stargate network ?” Colson asked. “Did you upgrade and expand it when you got here ?”
“No. We tried, but because the Destiny model and the Pegasus Galaxy model Stargate have millions of years of technological development between them, they are very hard to connect. It took every trick in the book to replace the eighteen Stargates on our worlds with Pegasus Galaxy models and made them compatible with the existing network.”
“What about the old Stargates ?” Porter asked, with a look on her face that made Colson frown.
“Alison ? What are you thinking ?”
“I don’t know yet. But I think there’s an idea growing in the back of my head.” She looked at Parron. “So, Captain, about the old Gates…”
“Well, I believe they are in storage in a warehouse on Planet One. That’s our capital, for the record. But nobody has….” That was as far as she got before there was an alarm. “What the…. Our teams are gone.” She hit some keys on a nearby panel. “One moment they were there and the next…gone. All eight of them.” She turned to one of her crew. “Get me Nova Roma.”
The crewmember nodded and opened the channel. Colson bit his lower lip and looked at the screen. This was where the soup would either stick to the spoon or things would fall apart.
(Desert Moon – Cave – 2 September 2016, 1057)
Grogan woke with a nasty cut on his forehead. One moment, they had been walking along. Then there had been a tremor and the ground had swallowed them all. As he got up, he realized that they were in a cave. Then he looked up and saw that the ceiling had apparently been made out of thin rock. It had simply been too weak hold their weight.
“Au. That hurt.”
“Don’t move.” He heard Henry say. Heard being the operative word, because the place was too dark for him to see two feet in front of his face. “I need to see to that cut.”
“I’d rather have Doc Guskov….” That was when people started turning on their flashlights, allowing him to see. And there, three feet away, was Pavel Guskov, his neck at an impossible angle. “....Doc. He is….” He looked at the Asurans and raised his Beretta. It was only now that he realized that he had lost his P-90 during the tumble. But Mehra grabbed him by the shoulder.
“He broke his neck in the fall. It’s not their fault.”
Grogan kept his weapon raised, but took a closer look at the body. As he did so, he realized that Mehra was right. He holstered his weapon and sat down. Henry set to treating the cut on his head.
“Sorry.”
“I understand.” Henry said as he bandaged the cut. “Our brethren in the Pegasus Galaxy really ruined our reputation, didn’t they ?” He handed Grogan his P-90. “Here’s you weapon, Captain.”
“Thank you, doc.” He made his way to Guskov’s body and closed his eyes. The doctor had taken a real beating on the way down. Grogan sighed and then cursed. His tirade was ended by his radio coming to life. He grabbed it. “Grogan here.”
=/\=This is General O’Neill, what’s going on down there ?=/\= But his voice sounded like Victor Leyton. And then he realized that the General O’Neill was using the Ancient Stones. =/\=You vanished from sensors.=/\=
“There was a cave-in, sir. Doctor Guskov…” He swallowed. “…didn’t make it, sir. He broke his neck in the fall, General.”
=/\=That’s it. I’m scrubbing this mission, get back up here.=/\=
“General O’Neill ?” Claudia asked, her tone sharp and annoyed. “I thought Colonel Vale was in charge of Nova Roma ? Did you lie to us ?”
“No.” Aranov began. “Colonel Vale IS the commanding officer of Nova Roma. General O’Neill is his superior, who commands everything Stargate related. He’s back on Earth, but we have these Ancients Stones that….”
“….Allow people to swap bodies.” Claudia said with nod. “We know about that technology, but we don’t have it. Apparently, it only works on organic lifeform.” She paused. “And that’s how your report back to your superiors ?”
“Yes, it’s the only way we can communicate over that long a distance.” It was at this point this radio came to life and O’Neill yelled at him to reply. Aranov grabbed his radio and opened the channel. “We heard you, sir. The problem is that we have no idea how to get out of this cave, sir."
=/\=Well, figure it out. Because if you don’t get back here, you’re fired !=/\=
“Yes, sir.” He said. “Aranov out.” He closed the channel and looked at the body of Guskov. “I know this stinks, but…” He sighed. “…we’re leaving Pavel here for now. That hole is big enough for the Jumper. Once we’re back aboard, we’ll go back for him.” Grogan and Mehra gave him looks, but he didn’t flinch. “Now, let’s find a way out of here.”
Grogan looked around. The cave appeared to a circle. Then he spotted a narrow passage. He readied his P-90 and headed down it. Looking back, he saw the others were following him. The Asurans had pulled some kind of energy pistols. They were about the same size as their Berretta’s. He still thought this joined mission was an extremely bad idea. But for better or worse, they were in it now.
(NAS Defender – Bridge – 2 September 2016, 1105)
The crew had managed to get the team on the surface back on the sensors. They were now tracking them as the progressed through the underground passages. While Parron did that, Colson and Porter were working on finding out why they had not detected the tunnels before. They were being helped by an Asuran male called Zachary. He appeared like an African human in his thirties. The three of them were looking at the readings. Then Zachary hit several buttons and the display changed. It showed white circles emanating from blue lines representing the tunnels.
“Is that a dampening field ?” Porter asked.
“It sure is.” Zachary began. “But this particle signature is not in the database. This is not the work of any species we have encountered. I managed to compensate by running a recalibration routine.”
“Can you expand the scan to cover the entire planet ?” Colson asked.
“Right.” Zachary hit several buttons and the scan expanded. “Bloody…” The whole planet was covered in a network of blue lines. “It’s enormous. There’s enough room in there for thousands of humanoid people.”
“Hundreds of thousands.” Porter said.
It was at this point that Parron joined them. Zachary explained what they had found. Parron scratched her face, bit his lower lip and then turned to Zachary. She told him to transmit the telemetry and open a channel to Nova Roma, which he did.
(Desert Moon – Tunnel – 2 September 2016, 1109)
They were making good time down the tunnel. But as they did so, Grogan began to realize that something was wrong. The walls and floor were too even. And then he spotted writing on the wall. It was covered in dust, which he wiped away. The writing was unlike any he had ever seen before. (He had studied a bit of Ancient, Goa’uld, Asgard and even some Furling writing. Beyond these alien languages, he also knew some French, Latin and Chinese.) He turned to the rest of the group.
“Doctor Aranov, Claudia, you need to see this.”
“What did you find, Captain ?” Aranov began, before spotting the writing. “Writing ?”
“It’s not any language I’ve seen before.” Grogan said. “And I think there is more of it.”
“It’s not any language we have encountered either.” Claudia added. “We could run a sample through the Ancient database aboard your vessel. That might generate some data.”
Aranov nodded and took out a camera, which he used to take several photographs of the writing. That done, he made a hand signal to Grogan and they continued down the passage. After two more turns, they encountered an alcove containing a ladder. At the top of the ladder was a hatch. Grogan carefully tried one of the rungs. It held his weight. He climbed to the top and found a button next to the hatch, which he pushed. There was a horrible screeching sound, but it opened. As it slid aside, sand began pouring in. He quickly made his way back down the ladder.
“Well, I think we have found a way out.”
“Yes, but let’s wait until the sand….” Aranov said before his radio cut him off. “Aranov here.”
=/\= Aranov, you’d better not be sightseeing down there.=/\=
“No, sir. But apparently the natives wrote a ‘Keep Out’ sign on the walls, or something.” He paused. “But we did find a way out, sir.”
=/\=Then stop yapping and start walking.=/\=
“Yes, sir. Aranov out.” He turned to the others. “You heard the General. Let’s get out of here and…” He swallowed. “…and collect Pavel. The sooner we get off this rock, the better.”
Looking back at the ladder, Grogan realized that the flow of sand had slowed down enough for them to climb out. So he led the way out of the tunnels.
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