SG Nova Roma, Chapter 3.25

25 – Earth and Novus Prime

(Stargate Command – Briefing Room – Year 2, Day 1, 0800)

President Robert Mackenzie walked into the Briefing Room and sat down in the last available chair. The other chairs were taken by Generals O’Neill and Hank Landry, along with several IOA representatives. Mackenzie had not wanted to waste time with red tape and he wanted people with common sense and good intentions. So he had insisted that the – by now infamous - F-Team represented the IOA for this meeting. Completing the group were Richard Woolsey and Radek Zelenka, who were here to represent Atlantis. It was Zelenka who would be providing the actual brief. So Mackenzie turned to him.

“Doctor,” Mackenzie said. “You have the floor.”

“As you all know, forty-five days ago, the last fleet of Berserker Drones began attacking the Nakai. We have been using the Deep Space Internet to monitor the Berserker War as best as we can. Until now, the Central Authority has been suffering massive losses, while taking out only a handful Command Ships in return. However, two days ago, one of the Command Ships attacked a Jynacko warship. We believe that this is because the Vicerant control of the Drones is breaking down.”

“How do you know that ?” Mackenzie asked.

“We have analyzed the signals between the command ships and the drones,” Zelenka said. “We found Vicerant coding hidden in the transmission, which has been…for lack a better term, dissolving.”

“So, does that mean that the Jynacko have entered the war ?” Reginald Jones – the British Representative – asked.

“Yes,” Woolsey said. “And as far as we can tell, the tide has turned against the Berserkers. In the past two days, the Jynacko have destroyed eleven Command Ships and hundreds of drones. We have given all our information to the proper people at the Pentagon, and they are running the scenarios at the moment. The first official projections should be coming out tomorrow. But for now, it sufficient to say that things are not looking good for the Nakai in the long-term. Even if they defeat the Berserkers, there’s a good chance they will be facing a War with the Jynacko next. Which probably won’t end well for them.”

“What about our people ?”

“The Delta Site is up and running. We send a crew led by Colonel Ben Pierce,” Landry said. Colonel Pierce had been the commanding officer of the Alpha Site for years. Pierce had also been promoted from Lieutenant-Colonel to Full Bird Colonel. “His former post as Alpha Site Commander has been taken by Colonel David Dixon.” Dixon had also been promoted to Full Bird Colonel. “As for the supply line, they have successfully dialed the Epsilon Site. We’ve also begun refueling the Beta Site power source.”

“Is that possible ?” Jones asked.

“We cannot refuel the hyperdrive cores that are still partially filled,” Zelenka began. “To do so would destabilize them. But we can refuel the empty ones.” Zelenka handed out several sheets of paper.

“I thought we had plenty of dials left,” Henry Valluy – the French representative – said. “That was the point of this whole scheme, right ?”

“Yeah, about that…” O’Neill began, while looking at Woolsey.

“Our calculations show that with Delta-Epsilon arrangement, we can stretch our fuel supply to four connections. By partial refueling between dials, we should be able to increase that number to eight,” Woolsey said. “We recommend dialing only once a month to deliver crucial supplies.”

“But even if we do that, our supply line would dry up after eight months,” Mackenzie began. “What about a complete refueling of the power source ? Will it still take five years ?”

“The main problem is not such the refueling,” Zelenka said. “There are extremely high levels of radiation inside the power source. Our process of purging this radiation takes several years. If we can streamline this process, I believe we could significantly reduce the inactive period.”

“Define significant, doctor.” Valluy said.

“Without the issue caused by the radiation, the down time would be as little two months,” Zelenka said. “There is a solution, but….”

“You want to ask the New Asurans for help,” Boris Grankin – the Russian representative – said. “That will not go over well with those higher in the chain of command,” The IOA had been very unhappy when the New Asurans had arrived in the Milky Way Galaxy. But New Asurans had proven not to be a threat to anybody. “But if it is the only viable option….”

“We believe it is,” Zelenka said, before looking at Mackenzie.

“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” Mackenzie said. “For now, I’m more interested in the New Asurans on Freedom Prime. How are things going at the Epsilon Site ?”

“The expansion has been completed. And the Stargate has been upgraded for long range dialing, sir.” Landry said.

“But the most important memo is that the Chaser has launched,” O’Neill said.

“Yes,” Zelenka said. “The plan is for them to stay in FTL for two days, then they will drop out and test their Stargate. The Primians have build roofs over three of their cities. The remaining fourteen cities have been sealed off by landing one of the Nakai Colony Domes on top of them. This leaves us with sixty-eight domes….”

“…And since there are seventeen cities, each will be granted four domes to dismantle for resources,” Woolsey said.

“Including the generators from the domes, which will leave the planet with a considerable energy surplus,” Zelenka said. “Once that surplus is tied into the planet’s Stargate, it will be capable of dialing the Delta Site and Chaser.”

“What about Spera ?” Mackenzie asked.

“They reached Novus Prime yesterday,” Woolsey said. “Establishing diplomatic contact with the locals proved….difficult. But today, a diplomatic party will visit the ship.”

Mackenzie nodded. From what he had heard, things had indeed not gone smoothly yesterday. After the original contact, there had been a long discussion over the radio. This had been followed by several hours of silence, during which the Novus Senate has been in locked in very heated debate. That had been followed by a very rude transmission that told the Spera to leave or they would be fired upon. So Vale had given the order for a short FTL-Jump.

But as Spera had been jumping, something had happened down on the planet. Word of the ship’s arrival had leaked out to the public and they had been very angry that the ship had been turned away. The Senate Building had been surrounded by an angry mob and the Senate Guards had refused to do anything about it, because they had agreed with the protestors. Mackenzie hoped that Vale and his people would be able to calm things down.

(Spera – Mess Hall – Year 2, Day 1, 1217)

Cinara was studying a schematic of Spera. ~If I’m going to living on this ship, I need to know all that I can about it.~ And it beat dealing with the diplomatic party from Novus Prime. The group was being given a tour by Doctor Aranov and Major Hailey. It consisted of two politicians and two civilians called Jason and Ellie. While the politicians had been bickering the entire time, the civilians had been very nice. Cinara and Hailey had been curious why these two civilians had been picked, so Hailey had simply asked them.

That was when they had learned that Jason and Ellie had been part of the Novus Colony that had made first contact with Destiny’s crew. They had also spearheaded the protests. After first contact, there had been some trouble. In the end, the people of the colony had been relocated to Novus Prime by Destiny.

Hailey had also researched something else. During their visit to Novus – the original one – Destiny’s crew had learned about Lieutenant Johansen’s ALS. They had also learned that there was a massive database, which contained a cure for the disease. Destiny had managed to secure a chunk of that database, but the cure hadn’t been in that part. What had puzzled Hailey, was the fact that the Novus Prime colonial expedition had gotten a complete copy of the database.

So why hadn’t Destiny’s crew gotten the cure from that copy ? It turned out that the database was divided into fifteen levels of classification. The copy that the Novus Prime expedition had taken along had only contained levels one through thirteen. But some foolish politician had made the cure Classification Level Fourteen. Which meant that the only copy of the database with the cure was on the sub-light evacuation ships. Which was the one copy nobody could get to.

~Bloody politicians.~ Cinara turned her attention to the schematic. Spera was divided into three general sections. There was the habitual section, which was where all the facilities and quarters were. Next came the buffer zone. This was where all of Spera’s spare parts were stored and the radiation shielding was. The shielding was sponge-like and three meters thick. Cinara had asked why the New Asurans had not upgraded the shielding.

The problem was that to remove the shielding, you had to open up the hull. Worse, if you moved it, the stuff started leaking radiation. A lot. The radiation would poison everybody within five thousand kilometers. It would take only 0.003 seconds for anybody within range to take a lethal dose. So the New Asurans had left the shielding alone. Finally, there was the section of Spera with the engines. There were several narrow corridors that allowed access for maintenance. These corridors were not connected to the habitual section. The only way to reach them was to exit the section, walk across the hull and then go back inside through a special airlock.

Before she could study the schematic further, the diplomatic party entered the room. Much to her relief, the politicians were no longer bickering. Aranov had managed to get them to talk calmly. ~If I had become Empress, I would have made him an Ambassador.~ How Nikita had managed to keep his cool and be this patience with these people, was beyond her. She was apparently not the only one who was not a fan of the politicians, because Elli and Jason split from the group as soon as they could.

“May we ?” Ellie asked.

“Have a seat,” Ellie and Jason sat down. “So, how do you like Spera ?”

“It’s a lot smaller than Destiny,” Jason said. “But it’s got all the essential parts and it’s cozy. And the bridge was really impressive.”

“This ship has it’s perks.” Cinara said with a smile.

“So, tell me all about it.” Jason said.

Cinara nodded and then began telling them about how she had ended up aboard this ship.

(Spera – Aranov’s Quarters – Year 2, Day 3, 0715)

The two politicians had not been very useful, but Ellie and Jason had managed to convince the Novus Senate to open up their database and Intelligence Reports to Spera’s crew. The Intelligence Reports on the Vicerant had been the most useful of those. They had revealed that besides their worlds in the Far Galaxy, the Vicerant also had a presence in Galaxy Destiny Two. That presence was some kind of research station located a little over two days in FTL away from Novus Prime. Spera had recharged in a nearby star, after which she had set course for this location.

The database had also revealed some very useful information. While the actual cure was not in database, a search of the database had yielded three folders full of research on ALS. That information had been transmitted to Freedom Prime, where it had been given to the medical team working on Exodus Two. And they were already making some major progress in their research.

In return for this information, Spera had provided the People of Novus with all the data they had collected on Galaxy Destiny One. Including everything they knew about the Xivolo Empire. They had also given them all they knew about the Nakai, the Goa’uld and the Order of the Other. Together with the announcement that they could resettle their abandoned colonies, Nikita suspected that they had just changed things considerably for the People of Novus. ~But we won’t be around to see that.~ And there were other things for him to worry about.

The last thing they had gotten from the database, was information about the rogue black hole that had destroyed the original Novus. Using the information, Nikita had calculated both the black hole’s course and where it had begun its journey. What really worried him, was the fact that the starting point of the Novus Black Hole was the same as the Vicerant Research Station. And after what they had been through so far, he refused to believe that it was a coincidence. So he set to hammering his hunch into an official report.