8 – Weeks Later
(Spera – Science Lab – Day 55, 1217)
Nikita Aranov was sitting in the lab, taking notes. He
was surrounded by items that Spera’s
crew had collected from several worlds. All of them belonged to the same race
as the locals from F1Z-008. While the items had told him some things, he really
needed to translate their language. And that was not really happening. And he
couldn’t ask the rest of his team for help. The rest of NR-2, along with NR-1
and NR-5 were off-world. They were gathering ice to melt down for water.
It was the fourth mission in a larger effort to
resupply the ship. Despite the fact that the hydroponics bay was now in
business and hard at work growing fruits and vegetables, Spera could still not feed her own crew. ~And if we get more crew,
it’ll be even more strained.~ And that was considering that the New Asurans
didn’t need to eat. The problem was that every inch of the ship was already in
use. ~The Ancients really didn’t design this ship for long-term habitation.
Unless we missed something on the two lower decks.~
Which was possible. They had only given the place a
quick look after coming aboard. ~Well, this is not going anywhere anyway.~ He
put down his pen and notebook, before walking onto the bridge. Major Anne Teldy
was sitting behind Flight Control One. Aranov gave her a nod as he approached.
“How are the translations going, doc?”
“They’re not,” Aranov began. “But there is something
else I want to discuss with you.”
“Let me guess, you want to talk about the food
situation.”
“Yes. I want to take a closer look at the two lowest
decks. We only gave them a quick visit after getting here,” Aranov said. “There
might be a room we could turn into second hydroponics bay down there. We should
check.”
“Okay. But take a team and be careful.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Aranov walked out and set to collecting his team.
(Spera – Deck 5, Corridor – Day 55, 1225)
Carl Grogan led the way onto deck five. He climbed
down the ladder that connected it to deck four. ~So far, so good.~ The corridor
was on the starboard side of the deck. It ran all the way from the bow to the
stern. The right bulkhead had windows that showed space, while the left had a
single set of doors. The doors were flanked by two windows, through which
Grogan could see a large piece of machinery. This was as far as the crew had
gone while scouting the ship.
“All clear.”
T’Zalo, Nikita Aranov and Xander Henderson came down
the ladder. Henderson was carrying a Geiger counter. He checked it and nodded
at Grogan.
“Okay, here we go,” Grogan had brought a P-90, which
he now readied. “T’Zalo, ready your MP-5. Just in case.”
“Yes, sir.”
T’Zalo readied his weapon, while Grogan hit the button
to open the door. As soon as the doors were open, he led the way into the room.
They found themselves on a catwalk. He looked down and saw that there was
indeed another deck underneath. As for the machinery, he realized that it was
actually a launch tube. ~This must be where the relays exit the ship.~
The catwalk continued to another set of doors. It was
part of a bulkhead, which had a hole in it. Said hole lined up exactly with the
launch tube. Grogan pointed his P-90 in that direction and spotted a rail with
claw attached to it. ~And that’s how they load it.~ The claw would grab a relay
and drop it into the launcher. ~So maybe…~ He opened the door and stepped
through. This put him in a cargo bay full of communications relays. The devices
appeared like metal cubes and were stacked all the way to the ceiling.
“Well, that explains why Spera hasn’t made any stops to gather resources to make relays,”
Aranov said. “We have enough stockpiled for the next two, maybe three
crossings.”
“Alas, that also means that we can’t use this room for
hydroponics.” Henderson said.
“Let’s keep going.”
They made their way past the stack of relays. This
revealed another door, which Grogan figured was to the last room on this deck.
He opened the door and they entered the room. It had the ladder to deck six.
But that was not the most interesting thing about the space. The door they had
entered through, was flanked by two stasis pods. And the other walls each had
four pods. This made for fourteen pods in total.
“Whoa, this is interesting.” Grogan said.
“This is the same model as the ones on Destiny.” Aranov said.
“Not exactly,” T’Zalo said. “If I’m reading this
right, these units are Mark 17s. According to what I’ve read, Destiny has Mark 11s.”
“Let’s put a pin in that,” Grogan said. ~It might come
in handy for Lieutenant Johansson.~ “But for now, we need to move on to deck
six.” He climbed down the ladder to deck six. The room at the bottom on the
ladder was the same as the one above, which meant that they now had
twenty-eight pods. “Clear.”
The others climbed down and he opened the next door.
Passing through the door put them in a room full of robotic arms with tools
attached. This was clearly where the relays were made. They crossed the room to
find a large teleporter was poised over a conveyor belt. The teleporter was how
Spera collected the resources needed
for the relays. ~Great, but it means that is room is also a bust.~ Which meant
that there was only one place left. ~Under the launcher or nothing.~ Beyond the
teleporter was the set of doors to the last room.
“Here we go,” Grogan said, before pushing the button.
The doors opened to reveal….a hydroponics bay. There
were no plants or soil in the room, but plenty of planters. And the room ran
the full length of the launcher, which made it six times the size of the
current hydroponics bay.
“Whoa,” Grogan said.
“Double whoa,” T’Zalo added.
“Am I the only one who thinks that this a really weird
place for a hydroponics bay?” Henderson said.
“Yeah, there’s probably a story behind that,” Aranov
said. “I’ll do some digging.”
The team gave the room one last look, then headed out.
(Spera – Science Lab – Day 60, 1342)
Nikita had used the Ancient communications stones to
arrange for some digging in the Ancient database over at Atlantis. Doctor Radek Zelenka had provided them with a file about
an Ancient scientist called Ajax. When Atlantis
had been in service, it had been home to a rebel scientist called Janus. Janus
had run all sorts of experiments that the Ancient political leadership had not
been very happy with. He had not been alive when Destiny had been build. But Ajax had been. And Ajax had very much
been the Janus of his generation.
He had conducted experiments that had made him
unpopular with the higher-ups. But despite this, Ajax had still managed to
gather enough support to convince the leaders to build Spera. And he had pulled some strings to make sure that he was in
charge of the ship’s actual construction. And being the rebel he was, he had
not build the ship according to the official blueprint. Knowing that the
politicians would not inspect the whole ship in detail, he had hidden the
stasis tubes and the hydroponics bay on the lower decks. He had also redesigned
the bridge – which in the original design had been a closet with just a console
to fly the ship – and added an airlock to deck the bridge was on.
“I like this guy,” Vale said as he browsed the file on
Ajax.
“I thought you would,” Aranov said. “The folks on Atlantis have assigned a team to see if
he made off-the-books modifications to Destiny
as well.”
“Let’s hope so,” Vale said. “Because according to the
eggheads back on Earth, the berserker drones will arrive in the Nakai Home
Galaxy. And that will not be good news.”
“Right, so any good news we can get is welcome,” Aranov
said.
“Da,” Vale said with a smile. “And we really need a
better name then Nakai Home Galaxy. In fact, we need better names for all these
galaxies.” It was at this point that Anne Teldy walked out of the bridge. “Yes,
Major? Is something up?”
“There’s something you should see, Colonel,” She
paused. “You too, doc.”
Vale and Aranov followed Teldy onto the bridge. She
led the way to one of the Science consoles and hit several buttons. The main
display changed to show a map. At the top of the map were several white dots,
representing Stargates. There was also a line of blue dots, which were the
Communications Relays. But what was interesting, was a cluster of red dots that
appeared to be holding position just outside the galaxy.
“Are those red dots the command ships?” Aranov said.
“They are. And we have no idea why they are holding
position,” Teldy said.
“Well, I’m not complaining,” Vale began. “Keep an eye
on them.”
“Yes, sir,” Teldy said.
Vale walked out of the bridge. ~We’re missing
something.~ But worrying about it wouldn’t help. So they would simply continue
working on the puzzle of finding out who or whom was behind this.
