SG Nova Roma, Chapter 3.29

29 – A Miracle and a Disaster

(Destiny – Gate Room – Year 2, Day 6, 1725)

Ginn and Perry had searched all the rooms they could access. All the control consoles they could get to were dead. And they were the only people aboard. There were also some kind of uniforms all over the place. But none of them were Icarus Base uniforms or Lucian Alliance garb. Instead, they were an alien uniform of some kind. And the man in the third stasis pod was wearing that uniform. At the moment, however, the two of them were not in the corridor with stasis pods.

Ginn and Perry had had disagreements in the past, but those were behind them now. They needed to work together and they needed to plot their next move. After searching the ship, they had precious little supplies. ~One day, maybe two.~ Ginn thought as she walked into the Gate Room. And without working controls, they couldn’t dial the Stargate. But even if they had working controls, there was the issue of Destiny being in FTL. ~And that means no Stargate travel.~

“How are things looking in hydroponics ?” Perry asked.

“The main dome is filled with nothing but dead plants,” Ginn said. “And I can’t get the original bay open.”

“We need more supplies and we need answers. The problem is that we can get the answers by waking up the man in the third pod, but that would be a drain on our supplies,” Perry paused. “We need a miracle.”

Before Ginn could say anything, a small circle of green light formed on the floor between the control consoles – where they were – and the Stargate. The light rose up into a cylinder and then coalesced into a solid object. Ginn picked it up. It was a can with a label in English. The label said ‘One Miracle as requested’. She sniffed the can.

“Smells like oil.”

“Okay, you tell me you can’t open the hydroponics bay and suddenly a can of oil appears out nowhere ?”

“I know,” Ginn said. “It even comes with an injector.” There was an injector attached to the can. “But I’m not complaining.”

Perry nodded and the two of them headed for original hydroponics bay. When they got there, Ginn used the can on the door. Then she hit the button for the doors. The last time, the doors had refused to budge. But this time the doors opened. As they stepped inside, Ginn realized why the doors hadn’t opened. The plants in the bay had grown like crazy, overgrowing everything. Including the doors. The oil had lubricated the doors and dissolved the plants. It would take time to clean up the place, but something told her that their food problem had gone away for the considerable future. Which meant that their only remaining problem was the man in the stasis pod.

(Spera – Science Lab – Year 2, Day 6, 1733)

Jennifer Hailey was very unhappy, because her theory had turned out to be correct. They had checked and double checked, but the data kept saying that they were right. ~This is going to be ugly.~ Taking a deep breath, she opened her laptop and then looked at Vale. After she had stormed out, she had begun brainstorming with the people in the science lab. When Vale had seen what they had been doing, he had left them to it.

Instead of breathing down their necks, he had used the Ancient Stones to report back to Earth. And when she had called him in for her report, he had used the Stones to get General O’Neill and Colonel Samantha Carter onboard. O’Neill was in Major Levine and Carter had swapped with Alison Porter. As soon as they had arrived, she had opened her laptop.

“Okay,” Vale began. “What do you have ?”

“It’s bad, sir,” Hailey said. “I think we have a paradox here. Because Grogan was right…”

“Grogan ?” O’Neill asked. “I got shot during training, that Grogan ?”

“Yes, sir,” Hailey began. “Now, the Xivolo travelled back and created a black hole. But it was a regular black hole.” She turned the laptop around, so that Carter could see the data. Carter sat down and began going over it. “It wasn’t going anywhere.”

“She’s right, sir. That’s why there were conflicting readings. Part of the readings are on the black hole, while the rest are the anomaly.”

“But the black hole isn’t here anymore,” Vale began. “It hasn’t been here for….,” He paused. “Oh, a rift in the space-time continuum ? That’s how they are getting readings on the black hole ?”

“Yes, sir,” Hailey said. “And it gets worse , because we figured out the experiment. We wrecked their coup d’état plan for Novus. This is their Plan B. They are going to try to dissolve the black hole with an anti-gravity beam. If they succeed, there will be no rogue black hole to destroy Novus. It would completely rewrite their timeline. New timeline, new chance to take over the planet.”

“But ?” O’Neill said.

“I checked their numbers,” Hailey said. “It’s not going to work. They’re the reason the black hole went rogue. That’s the paradox, they are going to cause the very event they are trying to prevent. That’s why the black hole skipped three solar systems. The ‘launch’ was so violent that it skipped a chunk of normal space.”

“Can’t we warn them ?” O’Neill asked.

“No, sir,” Carter asked. “That would alter the timeline. And we have no idea what the consequences would be if we do so, sir. We could end up deleting or killing millions of people. We don’t have the right to go messing with the timeline, sir.”

“And we tried to communicate with Charlie,” Vale said. “They are refusing to take our calls. So, ignoring the ethical issues, we simply can’t do it.”

“In fact, we need to get out of here,” Hailey began. “Because when this happens, it’s going to be bad. It’s not only going to destroy Charlie, the effects will probably ripple lightyears away from the point or origin. If we’re still here when that happens, this ship will get crushed like a tin can, General.”

“Okay, Colonel,” O’Neill said. “Take Spera into FTL. All Gate activity is to be suspended. You need to put as much distance as you can between you and here as you can before the big bang.”

“Yes, sir.”

Vale left the science lab, while Carter and Hailey started discussing the telemetry in detail. Not a fan of technobabble, O’Neill left the room as well. He was halfway to the bridge when the ship jumped into FTL and he was back in the briefing room at Stargate Command for a second. Once that moment was over, O’Neill continued to the bridge. When he got there, Vale was in the command chair.

“For the record,” O’Neill began. “Carter is right about this whole time-line thing. The Ancients got into all sorts of trouble by trying to play god.”

“I know,” Vale said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that it stinks. Because the Vicerant might be assholes, but they are still people.”

“There’s that.”

O’Neill sighed as he realized that Vale was right. And they were partially responsible for this situation. After all, it was Spera that had sabotaged their Plan A. And it had been right thing to do. But that was not making him feel better now.

(Spera – Bridge – Year 2, Day 9, 1157)

They had three minutes before the experiment began. The eggheads back on Earth had confirmed that the Vicerant plan wouldn’t work. They had severely underestimated the gravity field of the black hole. But more important, they had not properly compensated for its temporal distortion. And the experiment – which Vale had named Operation Backlash - was scheduled for 1200 hours today. As for Spera, she had done exactly what General O’Neill had ordered. They had put as much distance between themselves and Charlie as they could.

Levine and T’Zalo were doing the flying, while Hailey and Porter were on the science consoles and Colson was on the engineering console behind the command chair. Vale was in said command chair, with Grogan manning the weapons. ~Just in case.~ All of the non-essential system had been turned off, so that the power could be diverted to the shields.

“How are we looking, Alec ?”

“Shields are at maximum and we’re moving as at full speed.”

“Major, Doctor, what do we have on sensors ?”

“Nothing so far,” Hailey said.

“Same here,” Porter added.

Vale leaned back and watched as the clock ticked away the time to Operation Backlash. Then the display clock turned red and continued counting time in negative numbers. It reached minus seven minutes and twelve seconds before the science consoles began beeping with all sorts of alarms.

“Colonel,” Hailey said. “We are reading a major distortion wave. It looks like a major ripple in space.”

“Can we outrun it ?”

“No,” Levine said. “We have six minutes and seven seconds until it hits, sir.”

Vale activated the intercom and told everybody to brace for impact. As the ripple approached them, the space behind them slowly began to light up. Finally, there was a wall of blinding light as far as the eye – and the sensors – could see. And thirteen minutes and nineteen seconds after Operation Backlash began, that light swallowed Spera whole.