Stargate Nova Roma - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – Journey

(Nova Roma – Control Room – 14 June 2016, 0817)

It had been two weeks and they were still in one piece. Things had settled down after their jump into hyperspace. And so far, they were on schedule. Vale walked into the control room and made his way to the Flight Control Chair. Nova Roma was on autopilot now, but there was always somebody monitoring. This shift, it was Alec Colson who was on duty.

“How is she holding up ?”

“All systems stable.” He paused. “ZPMs are around 86 percent, which we are right on track for the ninety-four day option.”

“Good.” Vale began. “Alas, that will not help us keep sane.”

Vale smiled and shook his head. After launch, things had settled into a routine. But Nova Roma was a barebones facility. And the crew had only been allowed to bring one personal item each. So the crew was – ever so slightly – starting to go stir-crazy when off-duty. Nikita had set up an exchange program to help relief the problem a bit, but there was only much they could do. And from the sound of it, they would still be buzzing along for another eighty days. Vale would have to come up some way to keep morale up. But he did not say anything about this to Colson. Because that would basically be shooting morale in the foot.

“That’s your part of the equation. My job is to keep this tower on course.”

Vale nodded and left Colson to his work. He had to come up with something soon… But for now, he had his daily duties to see to. So he made his way down to the Infirmary. The place had originally been a storage room. Doctor Guskov and his staff had managed to turn said room into a nice little facility with room for five patients. It even came with an Operating Room. At the moment, there were only two patients in the facility. Guskov noticed him coming in.

“Marcus ?”

“Doc ?” He began. “What happened here ?” He gestured towards the two patients. They were both female privates – Andrea Jones and Henrietta ‘Hetty’ McConnell – whom were assigned to the Maintenance department.

“Privates Jones and McConnell had a little disagreement with a stack of crates.” Guskov began. “McConnell has a broken foot and Jones broke three fingers. Other than that, they have several cuts each.”

“Prognosis ?”

“I’ve put splints on both of them. They’ll be fine.” Guskov said. “But McConnell will have to walk on crutches for a couple of weeks.”

“Have there been any other injured ?”

“No, they are my first patients. A fact I am very grateful for.”

Vale had used the time since launch to read up on his crew. Pavel Guskov had worked in Tomsk, which was a major town in region known as Siberia. He had been assigned to the Emergency Room, where he had seen a lot. There, he had also proved himself an extremely capable doctor. This had brought him to the attention of the Russian government.

And when they had needed a doctor to lead a medical team in Africa, he had been their first choice. The hospital hadn’t been the best funded in the world, but it was in Africa that Guskov had truly learned the art of improvised medical procedures. He had operated patients in horrible conditions, with makeshift instruments. But he had never given up.

His file had impressed General O’Neill so much that he had gone to Africa and recruited Guskov to be the CMO of the Beta Site. The Beta Site medical staff had been a disorganized, badly trained mess. Under Guskov, they had become a top-notch team. There was no doubt in his mind that they could give many a hospital staff a run for their money.

“Carry on, doctor.”

He walked out to the Infirmary. As he did so, he passed Victor Leyton and nodded at him. Victor Leyton had been drafted from the British Army. He had been in charge of a maintenance team in Nairobi, Kenya. It was there that he had met Doctor Guskov. After Guskov had been recruited, he had recommended Leyton for the Stargate Program. He had been assigned as second-in-command of the maintenance team at the Alpha Site. When he the ninth chevron project had come to the Beta Site, he had been promoted to Chief of Maintenance of Nova Roma.

He was the superior officer for McConnell and Jones. McConnell was the supervisor for the Hydroponics Bay. Like Leyton, she had been recruited from the British Army. McConnell, however, was from Scotland. She wore the Scottish flag on her shoulder, instead of the British one. She was no expert on botany, but she knew how to get things done. And she had four people who *were* botanists – all of whom were civilians – under her command.

Jones was the supervisor for the Mess Hall. Like McConnell, she oversaw a small group of civilians. And like Leyton and McConnell, she had been drafted from the British Army. Before she had joined the Army, she had been an excellent civilian cook. Then – at age eighteen – she had enrolled in the Army and ended up working in the Mess Hall. Both Jones and McConnell had been assigned to same base as Leyton. He had drafted them both into the Program after his promotion to Chief of Maintenance. Leyton and McConnell were both Caucasian, while Jones was African-American. Back when he had been a centurion, seeing a person of color had been rare. And the few that had been around, had been Nubian slaves. ~Those were very different days.~

Slavery was gone. It had taken him time to wrap his head around the idea. And the religious views had changed a lot. Christianity had not existed in his days, Islam would not be founded for hundreds of years and Buddhism was still unknown. While getting used to the end of slavery had simply taken time, the religious shift had been quite the punch in the stomach. He had found support in the form of Father Harry Gunderson. The priest had listened to him and given him advice. ~So, what do you believe ?~ Honestly – right now – he simply didn’t know the answer.

Before he could ponder it further, he reached the last stop on his inspection tour…the main Science Lab. Alison Porter and Nikita Aranov were gluing together artifacts at the main table. Porter was working on a bowl, while Aranov had his hands on a vase. Vale frowned at the sight. The vase and bowl did not look very valuable. He reached the table and leaned on it.

“How is it going ?”

“Slowly, but steady….” Aranov began. “And because it helps to pass the time.”

“What ?”

“You were about to ask why we are bothering to glue these pieces back together.” Porter said. “We say the look on your face. These piece are common and not worth much. Except….they’re from P2Y-101.”

“P2Y-101 ?” He frowned. “I thought that was uninhabited.”

“Which is another reason why we’re gluing them back together.” Aranov said. “We’re hoping they will yield a clue once we’re done. The place should have been a blank slate, but these….” He glued in another piece. “….prove otherwise.”

“Well, keep passing the time.” Vale said. “And let me know if they do yield anything, docs.”

“We’ll do.” Aranov said.

Vale nodded and headed back out.

(Nova Roma – Control Room – 2 September 2016, 0758)

Vale sat down in the Flight Control Chair and looked at the clock. It was at two minutes and counting down. They had decided not to drain the ZPM completely, but to shot the drive down at exactly 0800 hours. The left over power would be used to increase the emergency power supply. Besides him, Colson, Hailey and Leyton were also manning the control room. He looked at the clock again.

“Thirty seconds.” Vale said.

“This is going to be interesting.” Colson began. “And probably not the smoothest ride, either.”

“Yes.” Leyton said. “I figured as much. Ten seconds and counting….Five…four….three…two….one….sub-light.”

Vale cut power to the FTL-drive and Nova Roma dropped back into normal space. They were in a solar system and near a blue gas giant. He engaged the sublight drives at full power and turned the tower away from the planet. Once they were far enough away from the planet, he reduced power to a third. The plan was to spend the rest of the day at sub-light. They would use the time to get their bearings and take a closer look at…well, where-ever they were now.

“What do we have. Hailey ?”

“One red giant star and seven planets.” Hailey said. “The gas giant we just dodged is number six. I recommend we enter orbit of number five. It’s about the same size as Earth, but as barren as the Moon. We should be able to calculate our current position once we are parked.”

“Orbit of number five it is.”

Vale piloted the tower to the planet and put it into orbit. Then he left the chair and put the tower on autopilot. While another member of the crew hopped into the chair, he made his way to Hailey’s console. The solar system they were in appeared to be a rather barren affair. Like Hailey had said, the planet they were orbiting was a dead world. The other planets were also looking pretty lifeless. The only place that had any promise was the third of six moons orbiting the sixth planet. It appeared to be the size of Earth. But the temperature was 50 degrees centigrade planetwide. And the scanners said the whole place was a giant desert.

“Thinking about taking one of the Puddle Jumpers for a spin, sir ?”

“I sure am.” Nova Roma had two Puddle Jumpers at her disposal. These were small, cylindrical spaceships which fitted through the Stargate. He turned to face Hailey. “How long will the calculation take ?”

“An hour to lock down where we are and three to plot the next jump. We did a general plot back at the SGC, but we’ll have to refine it a bit to make sure we don’t end up off-course now.”

“Good.” Vale said. “I’m going to report in to General O’Neill and then we’re going on a field trip.” They had two Ancient Stones to talk to the folks back on Earth. “Should take Nikita’s mind of PY2-101 for a while.” Despite Aranov’s best efforts, they were still no closer to learning who had left the artifacts on the planet. Or why. (They had – however – managed to pin down when the artifacts had been made.) “Keep the math and everything else going until I get back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Vale walked out of the control room. The communications room was a converted closet. There was a table, two chairs and the Ancient Stones. He sat down and put one of the stones on a flat device. He counted to three and then….

(Pentagon – Homeworld Security – 2 September 2016, 0805)

…found himself in the body of Colonel Cameron Mitchell. Finding the commanding officer of SG-1 on stone duty was quite the surprise for Vale. He would have expected Mitchell to be out and about exploring the Milky Way Galaxy. The door to the small office he was in opened and an Airman came with a mug of coffee. Vale figured he most have had a surprised look on his face, because the Airman frowned.

“Everything okay, Colonel Mitchell ?”

He snapped out of it and got up. “I’m afraid Colonel Mitchell has left the building. I’m Colonel Vale and I need to talk to General O’Neill.” Vale pointed to the coffee. “Is that black, Airman ?”

“Yes, sir.” He handed the coffee to Vale. “If I may….using the Stones for the first time, sir ?” Vale nodded and took a sip of the coffee. It was good. (Nova Roma only had instant coffee left.) “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the General, sir.”

“Lead the way.”

He drank his coffee as the Airman led him to O’Neill’s office. By the time they reach it, his mug was empty. The Airman nodded and O’Neill called for them to enter. Vale spotted a cart with file boxes on it and put the mug there. Then he entered the General’s Office. Jack O’Neill was signing some paperwork as he did so.

“Please tell me you don’t have more paperwork for me to sign, otherwise this conversation might get loud.”

“Nope.” Vale began. “One of the advantages of being a zillion lightyears away. No E-mail, sir.”

O’Neill looked up. “Vale, that better be you or I’m going to yell anyway.” He got up and walked around his desk. “So, how are things going out there ?”

“Well, so far Plan A is holding up. The tower is still in one piece and we’re crunching the numbers for the second jump. We’ve even got some time for sightseeing. And yes, I know that we are not here for that. But after ninety-plus days in hyperspace, the crew is going stir-crazy, sir.”

“So, you’re planning a little field trip to restore sanity ?”

“Gotta start somewhere, sir.”

“Good.” He gestured to one of the chairs at his desk. “Now that you’ve given me the cliff notes, I want some details.”

O’Neill went back to his chair, while Vale also sat down. The General began asking questions. As he answered them, Vale wondered how Colonel Mitchell was spending his time.