SG Nova Roma, Chapter 3.05

5 – Two Weeks and 2230 Years Later

(Spera – Science Lab – Day 165, 0817)

Marc Vale had said goodbye to his family this morning. The Goa’uld had not attacked Earth, with most of their ships being either destroyed or badly damaged. As for the handful of ships that had survived undamaged, they had tried to locate Spera. But the Ancient ship had dodged them with ease. After two days, the Goa’uld had given up and gone away. They had then spent two days repairing the battle damage, before parking the ship in Earth orbit.

The next nine days had been very busy. To begin with, there was had been plenty of wreckage from the battle to clean up. Records recovered by Stargate Command had showed that Ra – who was Supreme System Lord at this point – had declared Earth’s solar system off-limits. But Vale did not expect the Goa’uld to pass up a chance to get their hands on something they could to gain power. So they had cleared the system.

At the same time, the Asurans had set to repairing and upgrading Spera. So far, it had been impossible for the Asurans to use the nanites on the ship. They had needed raw materials and time. And there had been not enough of either so far. But now they had all the resources of Earth at their disposal. And that was not the only thing they had gotten from Earth. They had used this opportunity to stock up on all sorts of supplies. But the biggest score was that they had been able to get plants for the hydroponics bays. And not just eatable ones, but the several medicinal plants.

Finally, Alec Colson and Nikita Aranov had been working on several salvaged pieces of command ship and berserker drones. This was giving them a lot of information about the technology. The last thing that they had needed to do, was to destroy the Siren Device so that the Goa’uld couldn’t recover it. Which they had done this morning.

So now there was only the tiny issue of getting back to their own time and the right place. Which was why Vale was headed for the Science Lab now. When he got there, Colson was talking to Claus. Nearby, Nikita Aranov was taking notes on something. ~Here we go.~ He turned to Colson.

“Alec, what do we have ?”

“There is good news and bad news,” Colson began. “The good news is that we have found a way to get back to our time and the place where we were before all of this happened. The bad news is that Nikita has made a discovery that you are not going to like.”

“Okay, let’s start with the details of how we are going to get back.”

“Well,” Colson said as he took out a roll of paper and unrolled it on a nearby table. “This is what we came up with.” The paper showed a schematic. “We can’t create a passage from scratch, But using several special satellites, we can wedge the one that brought us here open just far enough. The passage was a lightyear wide on our way in, but Spera is much smaller then that. So we don’t have to worry about them noticing us.”

“And the satellites ? We can’t leave them behind.”

“That why they are fitted with self-destruct charges that will atomize them as soon as we have entered the passage.”

“Excellent.” Vale turned to Aranov. “And for the bad news ?”

“Well,” Aranov began as he took out a map of the Praedones Empire. “this is the Empire. And those green lines are their shipping lines. Spera’s AI told us that there was cluster of inhabited planets ahead. Now, this region here…” He took a pen and drew a circle on the map. “…is about a week of FTL travel away from where we vanished. And there are no shipping lines there, but there are several Praedones colonies in that area. These are backwater worlds…”

“….with no military priority. So they probably weren’t attacked. And because they are backwaters, they are self-sustaining.”

“Hence, the lack of supplies lines,” Aranov said. “And when the homeworld was destroyed, they would not be affected. I think that region is the cluster we’ve been warned about. And the heart of the New Praedones Empire. The real bad news is that Jennifer did the math on how long it would take us cross that area.”

“And the magic number is…”

“Forty-seven days, sir,” Aranov said. “There is one tiny silver lining. Because we’ve restored and fine-tuned the FTL drive, we should be able to compensate for the fourteen days we’ve spent here. So we should be back on schedule by the time we’re done crossing the cluster. Presuming we’re not blasted to pieces by the Praedones.”

“So, how did Destiny cross the cluster without becoming scrap metal ? In fact, why didn’t they simply destroy the ship, instead of attacking Earth ? That would have prevented the test of the Time Sail as well.” They were still calling the device the Time Sail, because the name had simply stuck.

“Because Destiny is a pretty advanced piece of tech. It could be a great resource for them,” Colson said. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Central Authority Nakai didn’t appreciate the competition either.”

“That’s what I figured,” Aranov said.

“Thank you, Nikita,” He turned to Colson. “How long to set up the return trip ?”

“The satellites are ready to go. Once we deploy them, it should take about an hour to open the passage.” Colson said.

“Get to it,” Vale said.

Vale headed back to the bridge. Once they made it back to the future, they would be facing an uncertain fate. ~So, what else is new ? We’re going back to what we’ve been doing. Facing the unknown in a million year old spaceship in the middle of nowhere.~ Which was exactly what they had signed up for, and they had all known it. So he sat down in the command chair and got back to work.

(Pentagon – General O’Neill’s Office – Day 166 / 23 January 2018, 0917)

Jack O’Neill was writing a report that he had hoped that he would never have to write. But it looked like Spera was indeed lost. So he had to put that on paper, before officially reporting that to both the President and the Joined Chiefs. ~This is not going to be fun.~ He was about halfway through the report when there was a knock at the door. It was Sergeant Walter Harriman.

“Yes, Walter ?”

“Sir, there’s a package for you,” Harriman said.

“And…”

“I think you’ll really want to see this, sir.”

Harriman reached to a nearby table and picked up something wrapped in cloth. He put it on the General’s desk and unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a metal box. And written on that box was the General’s name, with an instruction not to open it before today.

“This was found during the construction of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, sir. It was exactly where the Stargate is now, sir,” Harriman paused. “They dated it to 12 BC, sir.”

“That’s impossible.”

O’Neill opened the box. Inside were three stones tablets, with English text carved into it. ~Son of a….~ It was a report by Colonel Vale. Besides the report, there was also a book. It was in Ancient, which was titled Rewritten History. O’Neill opened it to find a note with in English. It said ‘For Doctor Jackson, he’ll have a field day’. He closed the book and gave it to Walter.

“Get that to Daniel.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harriman left, while O’Neill smirked. He grabbed the report he had been writing and threw it in the trash. Then he grabbed the first stone tablet and began reading. He would still have a meeting with the President and the Joined Chiefs. But something told him that now, this meeting was going to be a lot more fun.