(Pentagon – Homeworld Command – Day 8, 0758)
President Robert Mackenzie walked into General O’Neill’s office. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. Also, he had told his Secret Service agents to wait outside of Homeworld Command. O’Neill got to his feet.
“Mister President.”
“Jack, let’s do this.”
The two of them headed for the Communications Room. There were two chairs waiting for them. Along with two Ancient Stones and a communications device. They sat down. Mackenzie picked up one of the stones and looked at O’Neill. ~Okay, swapping bodies with somebody millions of light-years away.~ O’Neill put his stones on the device and he followed suit. His body felt weird for a bit and then…
(Spera – Briefing Room – Day 8, 0800)
…he was in a room what was clearly of Ancient design. He spotted a mirror and saw his reflection. The face of Doctor Nikita Aranov looked back at him. Alec Colson was also in the room, along with Colonel Vale and Major Hailey. As he looked around, he realized that he was in the briefing room. He was sitting at an oval table with six chairs. Colson was sitting next to him, while Vale and Hailey were standing. He turned to Colson.
“Jack, you in there ?”
“I am here, sir.”
“Welcome aboard the Spera, sirs.” Vale said.
“Colonel.” O’Neill said. “So, you think it’s appropriate to have a general appear as a civilian ?”
“Sorry about that, sir.” Vale began. “But the IOA representatives wanted an update on the refit. Colson and Aranov drew the short straw and had to go, sir. Well, that and everybody else was busy…”
“Shall we get moving ?” Mackenzie said.
“Yes, sir.” Vale said.
O’Neill and Mackenzie stood up, after which Vale led them out of the room. Mackenzie had a feeling that this was going to be a very interesting day.
(Spera – Bridge – Day 8, 0914)
Spera was indeed a very interesting vessel. The Wraith expansion was done. This was because on the third day of the mission, the ship had recharged in a star. They had channeled a massive amount of power into growth after this. This had allowed them to complete the growth yesterday. Now the crew was busy installing the gear and getting the new rooms up and running. It had not escaped Mackenzie’s notice that – even with the expansion – Spera was extremely cramped. They had just walked onto the bridge when there was an alarm. Porter was sitting at one of the Science stations. She turned to Vale.
“Colonel, we just broke the Master Code.”
“Excellent timing.” Vale began. “Doctor Porter, President Mackenzie and General O’Neill.”
“General, Mister President.” Porter said with a nod.
“So…” Mackenzie began. “…does that mean we have full control of the ship now ?”
“Yes, sir.” Porter said, while hitting some keys. “And we should also be able to calculate our position along Destiny’s course now.” She hit several more keys. “The computer says that it should take about a minute, sir. But we do know that we are a couple of galaxies behind Destiny, sir.”
The door opened and T’Zalo came in. At first, Mackenzie had been surprised at the sight of the Ursini and Nakai members of the crew. Especially since they were in the Nova Roma Expedition uniforms. But now he was used to it. (Because the New Asurans were so human like, they actually looked very natural in the uniforms.)
“General, Mister President.” He said. “Rumor had it that I can finally get to work flying this beauty.”
“You sure can, Sarge.” Vale said, before he turning to Mackenzie. “He is the best pilot we have, so I made him Chief.”
“Shouldn’t there have been a memo ?” O’Neill said.
“Makes sense to me.” Mackenzie said, getting him a look from O’Neill. “What ? You want him to promote to the worst pilot ?”
“There’s that.”
There was a beep, indicating that the calculation of their position was complete. Porter hit some keys and a projection appeared above her console. It should Destiny’s course. Porter zoomed in on a section and two red dots appeared. One at the top of the display – which was marked as Destiny – and one at the bottom, which Mackenzie figured was Spera. There were three galaxies between two ships.
“Let’s hear it, doctor.”
“This is Galaxy Destiny Three.” She let out a sigh of relief. “They made it across the void. But…” She swallowed. “…there is no way to know if Eli Wallace is still alive.” Mackenzie put his hand on her shoulder. She took a deep breath and continued. “We are here, in Galaxy Delta Alpha. Based on this, we are approaching the edge of this galaxy. There should be eight, maybe nine more stops before we leave it.”
“So now would be a good time to get the Beta Site reinforcements aboard.” Mackenzie said. “What do you need, Colonel ?”
“Well, we have plenty of people who are qualified to fly the Puddle Jumpers.” Vale began. “But, right now, Sergeant T’Zalo and Private Patterson are the only full time pilots we have. We need six full timers, preferably rated on Jumpers and F-302’s.”
“What about the other six slots ?”
“I’d like four extra security people….” Right now, the count was eight out of eighty. “…and two more medical people. We need two people to train as medical experts on the Ursini and Nakai. Some of our alien volunteers have First Aid training for their species, but I want more.”
“Okay, we’ll make it…” Mackenzie was cut off by a beep from the empty Science console next to Porter. He sat down at the console and hit several keys. “What ? I did my homework.” Mackenzie had read everything he could on Destiny and practiced on a duplicate console that the Air Force had built in his office at his request. “And we have two Stargates in range now.”
“Sergeant T’Zalo, drop us out of FTL.” Vale said.
As the ship dropped out of FTL, Mackenzie was suddenly back on Earth. He was standing in the Briefing Room at Stargate Command. But before he could say anything, he was back aboard Spera. He turned to Vale.
“How did the expansion take the drop out ?”
“Zero damage, sir.”
“Good.” He turned to O’Neill. “General, I believe we have some work to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two of them headed for the briefing room. Mackenzie had a feeling that this would not be as easy as advertised. But he had no intention of giving up. He had said that he would make it happen, so he would.
(Spera – Gate Room – Day 8, 0920)
Vale walked into the Gate Room and found Xander Henderson at the Stargate controls. He was already dialing the Gate, while also getting the MALP ready. At the moment, they only had one MALP. But Henderson was already working on piecing together more units. Destiny had flying cameras ball called Kino’s, which served as their MALPs. Alas, the Spera crew did not have any.
“What do we have, Corporal ?”
“Two Gates in range. One is locked out, so I took the liberty of dialing up the other.”
The Gate connected and Henderson send the MALP through. Vale looked at the screen and the telemetry coming in. The planet was a desert world with brown sand. There were, however, some palm trees in the distance. And the atmosphere read as breathable. Vale took out his radio and opened a channel. (It had taken some time, but they had managed to tie the radios into the Ancient communications system.)
“NR-1 to the Gate Room.” He said. “Repeat, NR-1 to the Gate Room.”
They had put together five SG-teams. Except that instead of SG, they were using NR. NR-1 was Nova Roma 1. The other teams were NR-2 through NR-5. Vale was in command of NR-1, which was the General Recon team. He had assigned Alison Porter to his team to cover the Science and Engineering angle. Next came Private Alexia Patterson, who was the team pilot. She also had medical training. Patterson was from the United Kingdom. She had causcasian skin, red hair in a pixie cut and sharp, blue eyes.
Rounding out NR-1 was G’Yal, one of the Nakai volunteers. Before he had volunteered for the Expedition, he had been a security officer over at Colony One. Vale had not counted him as part of the Security force, because he had wanted him of his team. And if G’Yal had been counted, he would have been gotten three new security instead of four. With G’Yal getting the last slot on Security Team Three, which would have left him one man short.
For the last slot, Vale had considered putting Hailey on NR-1, but he had wanted her to command NR-2. Which was the Science Team. Her teammates were Nikita Aranov, Alexander Bennet and Alec Colson. Next came Security Team One, which - led by Major Teldy - doubled as NR-3. Security Team Two – which was Grogan’s team – doubled as NR-4. This was why he had asked Mackenzie for a third security team. That way, he could deploy both NR-3 and NR-4 if he had to, while still having Security Team Three aboard the ship.
Finally, NR-5 was the Resource Team. Lead by Hetty McConnell, it included Andrea Jones and two New Asurans, Claus and Frank. Both of the New Asurans were botanists. NR-5’s job was to make sure that the ship had plenty of water, food, air and medicines. (By overseeing several operations on the ship and collecting things off-world.) It was not a very glorious duty, but it was key to their long-term survival.
The door opened and the rest of NR-1 one came in. They had salvaged the doors from the airlock. One had been installed in the Gate Room, so that it would be easier to secure the place if they needed to. The other was installed in the Infirmary, so that the quarantine room could be sealed airtight. (In fact, they had used it in a make-shift airlock of their own.) Porter and G’Yal were discussing the mission as they approached. Patterson locked the door behind them.
“So.” Porter said. “Are we flying or walking ?”
“Walking. The oasis is not that far.” Vale said. “Everybody ready to go ?”
There were nods and they walked through the Gate.
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