Chapter Text
PREVIOUSLY ON STARGATE UNIVERSE:
After unlocking the mystery of the Stargate’s ninth chevron, a group of civilian and military personnel fleeing from the Lucian Alliance’s attack against Earth’s off-world Icarus Base, become stranded on the other side of the universe aboard an unmanned spaceship called Destiny—launched by the Ancients millions of years ago as part of a grand experiment to explore the universe, set in motion but never completed.
Over the course of its long journey, Destiny has sustained significant damage resulting from both neglect—due to the ship being left unmanned for far longer than originally intended—and battle damage. This has caused great strain on the crew, as many systems aren’t functioning at their full capacity or are simply inoperable. On top of this, Destiny can only reach approximately 40% of its originally designed power capacity, limiting the ship’s defensive capabilities as well as hindering the crew’s ability to dial the nine-chevron address back to Earth.
Struggling for survival and fighting against all odds, the impromptu crew has explored dozens of words through previously launched Stargates, in the hope of finding a way home. After unlocking full control of Destiny, however, the crew has discovered the underlying reason for Destiny's construction. In addition to exploring the universe, the ship was also intended to collect information and piece together fragments of a complex message that the Ancients had found embedded in the fabric of the universe itself.
Recognizing that the pattern could not have been natural in origin, the Ancients concluded that its presence suggested an order to the universe never thought possible. Through this insight, the crew has realized that Destiny actually has a mission so important that it overshadows their desire to get home—and that, by pursuing onwards toward the ship's ultimate destination, it may, in fact, allow them to get home.
A little over a year aboard Destiny, the crew has run into a snag: an army of automated drones, left behind by an unknown civilization, whose sole purpose is to eradicate any technology other than their own. These drones are now hell-bent on hunting down and destroying Destiny; to that end, they have cut the ship’s only supply line by occupying every world on the Ancient ship’s path with a Stargate present, as well as blockaded its source of power—select stars through which Destiny would normally fly through to replenish its reserves.
Desperate and running low on both power and resources, the 70-plus crew agrees to a plan conceived by Eli Wallace—the young man responsible for unlocking the ninth chevron. They have all gone into slumber using Destiny’s stasis pods while the ship itself performs a three-year long FTL jump between galaxies to run away from the drones.
Unfortunately, one of the stasis pods has malfunctioned, and one crewmember has been forced to stay behind to try and repair it in only two weeks’ time before he starts eating into the power reserves for the jump, which would result in the ship drifting the rest of the way to the first star in its path on the next galaxy… for at least a thousand years. Only two other crewmembers know of this, as the rest had already been placed into stasis before this discovery.
Their hope is that, upon waking up, Eli Wallace will still be there to receive them—and so is Eli’s…
He didn’t have a single dream during all of his time inside his stasis pod. For him, it was like he had gone to ‘sleep’ mere seconds ago. His mind and body, however, felt completely rested and ready to go back to work without as much as a need to yawn. Not unlike a computer when it was placed into ‘Hibernate’ mode, he figured. And in the future, if anyone ever asked Dr. Nicholas Rush what it was like to be in stasis for several years, this would actually be the analogy he’d use.
All of these thoughts, everything he had just considered, flooded his mind well before he even realized that his pod was powering down. There was still ice—or whatever miracle compound the pods used to slow down a person’s metabolism and keep them in stasis—covering half of his body, but it was slowly receding. ‘Slowly’, of course, was a misnomer. Rush had seen how fast a pod could ‘thaw’, and it was certainly faster than this. He realized that his brain had gone into overdrive, which only served to confirm the efficacy of the Ancient stasis pods.
Under such improved mental state, he couldn’t help an urging need to find out how much of the Pattern had been lost during their three-year-long FTL jump.
Upon hearing the hiss of his pod’s door sliding upward, his eyes popped open. His vision was hazy at first—of course these devices had to have at least one flaw—but he could make out a red blur in front of him. He blinked a couple of times as his brain finally returned to its normal operating speed. Pity, he thought. He had only begun to consider the endless possibilities of being able to think ten times faster than any normal brain could.
“Welcome back,” the blur said. Its voice was all too familiar, and as Rush’s vision cleare, he confirmed his suspicions. There, standing in front of his pod, was Eli Wallace.
Rush felt relieved to see that the wonder boy had figured out how to fix his own pod after all. He also looked much different; he hadn’t just lost weight, he was in amazingly good shape. Rush would have to ask him how that had happened, as it could definitely not have been the result of being in stasis.
Something about Eli’s expression, however, made him uneasy. It was a mixture of relief, concern, and sadness—and Nicholas feared whatever reason there could be for that. “Eli, what happened?” he asked.
“Nice to see you too,” Eli replied, trying to hide behind a cheerful tone of voice what his face couldn’t. “How are you feeling?”
Rush peeked outside and noticed that, aside from the blue glow of the other pods in the room, not a single light was on. “Why is there no power?” he said, ignoring Eli’s own question. He had to know if the ship was just about to enter a star to replenish its power reserves, or…
“Hey, take it easy. You just woke up; you shouldn’t worry about the ship right now.”
There was a quiver in Eli’s voice that was impossible to miss. The boy was a terrible liar, and he couldn’t really keep any issue that could affect other people a secret. Rush sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head ever so slightly. “We didn’t make it, did we?”
“Oh, no, w-we made it alright, but…”
Eli’s voice trailed off. Rush dreaded what he’d say next. Had his calculations been off after all? Had Destiny spent the last thousand years drifting across space?
“I’m afraid the star Destiny intended to recharge on upon arriving went into an early supernova, most likely a few hundred years ago,” Eli continued. He scratched the back of his head and grinned almost imperceptibly. “Thankfully, while you guys slept, I was able to make some adjustments to Destiny’s flight path that bought me an extra ten weeks to fix the pod. By the time I, uh… joined the rest of you, there was still some power left in reserve, and now Destiny wants to try and get to the closest suitable star possible using that tiny surplus.”
“But it will still fall short,” Rush concluded. He stared at Eli in wonder; the MIT dropout sounded so absolutely certain of what was happening that it unnerved him. The only way Eli could know for sure about the star he’d mentioned and its ultimate fate was if he’d access the ships sensor logs. That would’ve taken Eli no less than an hour—and that was what irked Rush, because Eli shouldn’t have woken up before him.
“I, uh, I’ve-I’ve… been awake a bit longer than you,” Eli stammered. “I… may have altered your programming so that the ship would wake me first the moment it came out of FTL.”
Rush held his gaze in befuddlement. That statement was almost like the kid had read his mind. Yet again, something about Eli’s tone didn’t quite convince Rush that the kid was being wholly truthful, but he would let it slide for now. “How short?”
Eli scratched his head again. “Approximately the same distance the Voyager 1 probe had covered by 2010 since its launch.”
If that remark had been Eli’s attempt at sugarcoating things, it failed. Rush immediately reckoned that the Voyager 1 would’ve been roughly 116 AU—or 10.8 billion miles—away from its planet of origin by 2010. He nodded slowly. That couldn’t be such a bad thing; depending on Destiny’s speed upon exiting FTL, reaching that star would potentially take less than a century. All he had to do was to go back to sleep for a few more decades.
Rush mentally slapped himself. There he was, going on to think about himself rather than the crew. Many of them still had loved ones back on Earth. By the time Destiny reached its new objective, everyone he and the rest of the crew knew back on Earth would already be dead. How would they feel when they found out that their family and friends were no longer there to greet them? It would tear them apart. Just like how Gloria’s passing had done to him.
He pushed those thoughts away. Right now, he had to focus on the problems at hand—like the power issue. He rolled his eyes. What was he thinking? No way there was anything that could generate enough power to successfully complete the jump… unless they removed everyone from stasis and used whatever remaining power the pods had, maybe even at 10% shields.
Would it be enough though? Rush thought. To give it the boost it would require… No, Eli would’ve figured that part out by now.
For that matter, why had Eli woken him from stasis? Couldn’t he have told him all of this after the ship replenished its reserves, be that a couple of decades or a century from today? It seemed kind of pointless for Eli to give Rush these news right now if he would’ve found out anyway later on. “What did you even wake me for?” Rush finally asked out loud.
“Actually, I also awoke Colonel Young. You just happened to come out of stasis second,” Eli mumbled.
“Why?” Rush pressed.
“I… thought someone ought to tell the top guys back on Earth.”
“”Well, Colonel Young does seem like a rather obvious choice for that endeavor. But again, why me?”
“Uh… In case he couldn’t explain the particulars of our problem? I mean, he is smart, but if anyone asks for details—”
“Couldn’t you do it?”
“Who, me?” Eli seemed alarmed for an instant at this suggestion. “No, I-I can’t. I mean, uh, it-it-it should be someone they respect as an authority. Nobody would listen to me.”
The former videogame slacker gave that nervous smile of his that showed something was worrying him—and he did seem worried beyond words. There was one other thing that was off about the kid, though. He’d never openly challenged Rush, but Eli did have a mild ego. For Eli to discredit himself like that…
By now, it was painfully evident that Eli was hiding something. Rush decided to let the matter slide for the time being, though. It was possible, after all, that being in stasis could affect people differently—and Eli had picked up a defective pod. Perhaps he had missed something while repairing it.
“So, Colonel Young is already awake and at the communications room, I presume.” Eli nodded. Without any further words, Nicholas took the first step outside the pod and breathed deeply. It was good to let that good old recycled air fill his lungs once again, if only for a short while before he returned to sleep.
Elsewhere aboard the ship, Colonel Everett Young was unpacking the long-range communication device to set it on its usual table. He was still surprised not to be feeling groggy after three years of sleep. Mere minutes after being awakened by Eli, he was as sharp and ready for action as an airman starting his tour of duty. Not that he would be seeing any action today, however.
As he held the terminal on his hands, he sighed. He had imagined the next time he would use the device very differently. He had pictured himself connecting to someone at Homeworld Command to announce triumphantly that their tree-year-long journey had ended. Perhaps by then his comrades would’ve found a planet to establish a supply line from. It didn’t thrill him that he would be reporting back today only to let the brass know that the crew—his crew—would not be waking up for another several decades.
He checked the battery, finding it was at 100%; as one of the few devices that remained ‘plugged’ to the ship at all times before it was stored and put away, Young wouldn’t have expected less. When fully charged, the communication device would allow for up to 5 people to connect with personnel on the other end for up to 11 hours. Of course, the fewer people using it, the longer the charge would last.
To this day, it still amazed Young how human ingenuity had been able to replicate centuries-old alien technology, even enhancing it in the process. Whereas the Alteran model had to be deactivated by force—though in all fairness, those had been emergencies that had required quick thinking and acting—this device could be shut down at will.
Young started fiddling with one of the Ancient communication stones, pondering about their current situation while he looked at the box-shaped device now sitting on the table. He couldn’t have imagined how terrible it was. In fact, it sucked. Before going to sleep, Young had felt a spark of hope. Finding Eli still alive as he stepped out of his stasis pod had stoked that fire. Sure, the kid was slimmer, but he also seemed healthy and in a better shape than he had ever looked.
Yet the news Eli had given him right off the bat had shattered all traces of hope in an instant. Young felt the greatest heaviness in his heart he could possibly imagine, not just for himself but for all the people aboard Destiny he had failed to take back home.
He didn’t blame Eli; he trusted the kid had done his math just right and that he hadn’t wasted more power than he should’ve while the others slept. He didn’t even blame Rush, no matter how much he wanted to. He’d come to understand the man a little better, and Young believed that, in spite of his selfish attitude, he had paid a high enough price for his mistakes.
A series of footsteps approaching from the hallway heralded the arrival of the two people Young had just thought about. He looked up and tried to muster as much of a stoic countenance as he could as Rush stepped inside the room, followed closely by Eli. Rush sat across from Young and nodded almost imperceptibly at the Colonel who returned the exact same gesture. Eli simply stared sadly at the two men as he let his frame drop on the only sofa present here.
No words were exchanged between any of the three. Young and Rush would have enough of a chance to do that once they contacted Earth, and Eli had apparently said enough—something Young never thought he’d ever witness. Whether Eli felt guilty about this whole issue or just sad that he wouldn’t get to see his mother again, Young just felt an urge to hug him and let him know that it was okay, that it wasn’t his fault. As soon as he started leaning forward, though, Eli backed away.
Young blinked; if anyone aboard the ship felt comfortable about physical contact from anyone, it was Eli. He glanced at Rush and saw it in his eyes; the scientist had noticed something off with the whiz kid, too. Before the Colonel could enquire about it, though, he felt a slight shudder under his feet. Rush started looking around himself, clearly feeling it as well. Eli, on the other hand, seemed to be staring at empty space for a few seconds before he spoke. The firm conviction in the kid’s voice was unnerving.
“The Stargate… we have an incoming wormhole!”
STARGATE UNIVERSE
SEASON 3, EPISODE 1:
ARRIVAL, PART 1
Both Young and Rush shot Eli a double take. “How can you be so certain?” Rush asked him.
Eli’s jaw moved up and down a few times, struggling to find words. “Uh… t-this always happens when a ninth-chevron connection is made. Remember how the Gate shook back on Icarus Base as we tried to dial Destiny’s Gate, before we even knew—”
Young cut Eli off. “Armory,” he said, addressing Rush directly while he jumped off the metal stool and made a run for the hallway. The scientist hesitated for a moment but quickly recovered before following suit. Both men knew exactly what an incoming wormhole meant—and it wasn’t necessarily good. They needed to be ready for anything.
“Eli, get to your quarters and start deploying Kinos,” the Colonel instructed as he left, calling out to the whiz kid left behind in the communication room. “We can use them to monitor the Gate Room!”
Eli was more than aware of that little fact, so much so that he already had a few of the Kinos moving through vents to the Gate Room. By the time the first of them got there, the Gate had reached one third of the dialing process, judging from the two lit symbols plus the third one that even now finished aligning itself with the bearing that hung from the ceiling.
He also had one Kino fly to the Armory vent to keep an eye on Colonel Young and Rush, but not before making sure that the route they would have to take to get there would have enough breathable air. He was surprised by how fast the two men managed to get there. Not that the Armory was too far away, but still. He watched as the Colonel quickly grabbed a vest and strapped it on while Rush reached for the radios. By then, five of the symbols on the Gate had activated.
Eli kept an eye out on both Kino feeds and listened in as Colonel Young gave instructions to Rush, or rather, as he finished giving him instructions. “Once you get to the CI room, stand ready to vent whatever amount of atmosphere remains in and around the Gate Room without hesitation,” he said as he grabbed one of the many high-powered rifles and a few extra ammo clips. “We need to make sure the stasis rooms remain safe and out of reach. If it’s the Lucian Alliance arriving through the Gate……” He stopped and looked at Rush in eye. “Don’t make the same mistake I made.”
“You know,” Rush said, checking the magazine of a 9mm handgun he had found, “chances are higher it could be either SG personnel… or the blue aliens. The information they obtained from Chloe—”
“Anyone or anything crosses that Gate who isn’t our people,” Young stressed, loading a mag into the rifle and cocking it loudly, “you know what to do.” Rush nodded, turning to grab a Kino remote, but he was stopped by Young. “I need to hear you say it.”
Rush looked at the Colonel and said, “I will. I promise.”
Young nodded. Rush grabbed the Kino remote for each of them both and tuned into the composite feed from the Gate room. Eight of the Ancient artifact’s symbols were engaged by then, with the ninth approaching the top bearing to complete the legendary sequence. Without another word, both men ran out of the room and went their separate ways.
As Eli assigned two more Kinos to covertly tail the men, he suddenly felt conflicted. Right now, the only person who knew that the atmosphere in the Gate room had already been vented was him. Well, to be more accurate, he had displaced that air—a small measure that would preserve what precious little power the ship had, as it was easier to move concentrated pockets of breathable air from one compartment to another than to keep the millennia-old CO2 scrubbers active, even at minimum capacity. Not that he couldn’t actually keep the most essential systems online for at least a week, but then again, that same power was the one thing that would help Destiny get a head start towards the closest star system he’d mentioned earlier to Young and Rush.
Regardless, being able to manipulate the life support system like that required a certain degree of control over it that could only be achieved at certain locations within the ship, or by the ship itself. And that was Eli’s main concern. Once Rush managed to get access to the Control Interface Room, he would discover just how much control Eli currently had over the ship’s systems—and that, in turn, would lead to a plethora of questions Eli wasn’t ready to answer just yet.
As it was, he had two choices. He could cut all power to the ‘Apple Core’, thus stonewalling Rush’s attempts to access it, while trying to determine himself who the newcomers were and if they posed any danger before deciding whether or not to restore atmosphere to the Gate room; with luck, Rush wouldn’t even suspect that it was Eli behind all of that. Or, he could just fill the room with air right now and hope that Rush would not notice the tiny aberrations in the life support system logs, and then let him decide all of the aforementioned.
The ninth symbol lit up on the Gate, and with a clicking noise, an even horizon sprung to life from within the age-old ring.
Eli decided to take the risk and leave the Gate room without air. He’d leave the Apple Core powered up and keep an eye on Rush as he accessed the system while assessing the situation himself—and if Rush got close to finding anything out of the ordinary, he’d attempt to throw him off the scent. As for Col. Young, hopefully he would be wise enough to monitor the Gate room from several sections away with the Kino remote Rush had given him. Otherwise, Eli would have to act quickly to restore atmosphere to critical areas.
Why am I even jumping through so many hoops? Eli wondered. Since his arrival on Destiny, all he had done was follow instructions from the crew leaders, the decision-makers. It was all he had needed to do; the weight of those decisions, whether they ended up being right or wrong, would always fall on those people, never on him. The only time he had openly challenged one such decision was what had put him in his current predicament—something he only mildly regretted.
But now, Eli was basically going behind the backs of his leaders, namely Young in this case, and taking matters into his own hands. Why was he making those decisions himself?
Oh, he wasn’t naïve; he knew the answer to that question. He was doing it because he could—because he was fully able to do so. It was exhilarating. It was the closest thing to an adrenaline rush he could feel now.
And that scared him more than anything.
Yet when the first traveler flew through the glimmering ‘puddle’, he realized it was the best course of action. In fact, he immediately killed power to absolutely everything in and near the Gate room for good measure… and waited to see just exactly what the armored figure could do.
For a moment upon reaching the other side of the event horizon, he felt like he was flying. The added G’s and the distance traveled felt about right, taking into account Tau’ri Col. David Telford’s mission reports and data analyses thereof performed by several UNSC AIs. The lack of artificial gravity also met his expectations. Had he been a regular old human, his brains would’ve splattered on the far-end wall upon hitting it. Only thanks to his artificially enhanced reflexes was he able to correct this immediately, by firing the thrusters of his Mjolnir armor at the precise millisecond to propel himself downwards.
With lightning-fast motion, Spartan Joseph ‘Joe’ Rodriguez reached for his M395B DMR modified with the Recon configuration as he landed on one knee, his mag-boots keeping him clamped to the metallic floor, and carefully scanned the dark room through the sight of his weapon for any signs of life. The rest of his team would arrive shortly, and he wanted to make sure the place was secure before that. Otherwise, he would have to call out to them the second they stepped through the Stargate and instruct them to find cover.
“Shields are at 83 percent and recharging. I’m guessing side-effect of Gate travel,” a female voice spoke into his helmet’s COM. “Now, let’s see… Barometric pressure: zero. Atmospheric composition readings: zero. Temperature: ice cold. No artificial gravity… Are we space-walking right now?”
Upon hearing the still-unfamiliar female voice, Joe wondered if the Master Chief had ever felt uncomfortable about having to carry an AI into battle. The tactical advantage was unquestionable, but with someone as vivacious and carefree as Eunice, Joe felt like he was babysitting a teenager in the midst of a battle—which, in all fairness, wasn’t that far away from the truth, at least when it came to the babysitting part. He was, after all, just ferrying the civilian AI inside a modified COMPAD on his left wrist until she could be plugged into the Ancient ship’s systems. “Negative, we’re inside Destiny’s Gate room,” he deadpanned.
“The Gate room? You mean we did arrive at a supposedly inhabited ship. You sure about that?” Eunice said condescendingly. Too condescendingly, perhaps.
“The crew is in cryo-sleep,” Joe reminded Eunice starkly.
“Still applies as ‘inhabited’, meaning the ship must use life-support systems—meaning there should be an atmosphere in this ship, even if the air has not been recycled. Unless…”
“…something caused the atmosphere to vent,” Joe replied, mentally kicking himself for not understanding earlier what the AI had been trying to say.
“Exactly.”
“Hull breach caused by an attack?”
“Possibly. Or just a ship malfunction.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Joe saw another armored figure flying through the Gate, landing with utmost grace despite the added impulse—better than Joe had, by far. Her magnetic boots automatically kicked and locked on to the floor of the Ancient ship just before two other soldiers, dressed in similar armor pieces as Joe’s, followed suit, also landing without a hitch but nowhere near as gracefully. In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised if they had left a couple of dents on the Ancient floor.
The more graceful Spartan looked around as she took in the room that she was currently occupying. It was spacious, no doubt about it. This place could easily hold around forty individuals—sixty if they were standing close together. And yet somehow it still felt a little… cramped.
“Eyes open, Apocalypse,” Joe instructed before the rest of his team could even reach for their weapons. “We may have a foothold situation.”
“Whoa, whoa, hold your horses, Spartan!” Eunice exclaimed. “I said ‘possibly’ at your mention of an attack, and I meant that very loosely.”
Uncharacteristically for a Spartan, Joe’s second-in-command, Abigail Williams, giggled at this remark. “Please do keep in mind, Eunice,” she said, “that my brother used to be an ODST. He has a penchant for expecting enemy combatants behind every corner, even where there are none. Still…”
Abigail drew out her weapon, a BR55 Heavy Barrel Service Rifle with an extended magazine clip and a customized SS/M49 silencer specifically modified to the standards of what many had subbed simply the Battle Rifle, since SS/M49 silencers were used primarily on the M7S SMG.
“Can’t hurt to stay on our toes,” she concluded.
“If you say so, Spartan. FYI, no power levels in the vicinity either, other than those coming from the Stargate.”
As if on cue, the light provided by the Gate died right there and then as the event horizon closed, leaving the team in near-absolute darkness.
Before the Gate started venting off steam, the four armored soldiers had activated their helmets’ night vision. Joe signaled the other two members of his team, Spartans Albert Kingston and Hugh Cain, to fan out towards the two doors located beside each of the room’s control consoles. The two soldiers reached for their own weapons—a silenced M20 Submachine Gun, and a Z-180 Close Combat Rifle/Asymmetric Engagement Mitigator more commonly known as the Forerunner Scattershot, respectively—then pressed the buttons meant to open the doors, but got no response.
Power loss must’ve killed the door controls too, Joe thought.
Thankfully, the corridor in the middle was still open, so he signaled for them to fall in behind him and Abigail as they went through. Fireteam Apocalypse still had a lot of ground to cover between here and the ship’s Cryo Bay before moving on to Phase II of their mission, and so they kept advancing, clearing corners and keeping an eye out for trouble.
If Eli hadn’t been so utterly fascinated by the four armored humans—or humanoids—he would’ve been worried to death due to the authentic danger these newcomers could pose.
Not unexpectedly, Young had already been showing signs of a polar-opposite reaction while watching the Gate room feed—clenched jaw, muscles flexing into combat position, eyes dead-set on a self-assigned target. At least he was sensible enough to fall back even further instead of facing the foursome, though it was likely he would just go back to the Armory in search of heavier ordnance to use against them. As long as he decided against using any explosives to avoid damaging the ship any further…
Seriously, Eli? Colonel Young could die trying to defend us, and the first thing you worry about is the ship?
It wasn’t that keeping the ship in good shape was unimportant, but certain things needed to take priority in a situation like this, and the ship was just below their lives on that list. With that in mind, he went back to monitoring the intruders, programming the Kinos to continue following them closely through the vents. At a glance, it was painfully evident that any attempt at a confrontation would end badly for the handful of crew members awake.
For the moment, Colonel Young seemed to have reached the same conclusion Eli had. By the time he got to the Armory, in any case, he seemed content to just monitor the Kino feed while trying to determine which of the meager weapons they had on board would work best on them. Meanwhile, Rush had already taken the initiative to transfer control of all possible systems to their improvised Auxiliary Control Room. Moreover, he was now on his way there, which should keep him away from trouble.
This little respite was the perfect time for Eli to study the armored invaders more closely. Already he knew that the suits these people were wearing had to be equipped with their own life support systems, and that they had mag boots to keep them attached to the floor. They also probably had a way of communicating between themselves without being heard by anyone else. That information was next to useless, however, if he couldn’t determine what other technologies they were equipped with.
Using the full array of sensors from both the Kino and the ship itself—albeit at minimum capacity so as to avoid detection—he scanned the Fearsome Foursome. The first thing he found was an energy field surrounding each of them individually; a shield, of all things. The armor itself seemed to be made out of a tough alloy, titanium from the looks of it, probably as tough as Destiny’s hull. There would be no penetrating that without some very heavy stuff, like a shot from the shuttle’s energy cannons.
Their weapons seemed to be pretty standard and projectile-based—except for one. It closely resembled a shotgun of sorts, but its design was highly angular and metallic. It appeared to be held together at least partly by energy fields, as indicated by its floating sights. Eli could also see some orange highlights throughout the casing. If ever a weapon could be labeled as ‘alien’, this had to be the one. He could only imagine what a thing of that caliber could do.
As Eli had surmised, there was clear evidence of communications between the four interlopers; basic radio waves no less. But the armor also seemed to boast an echolocation system, judging from the constant ping they emitted. It seemed to have a limited range, but it was multidirectional, which meant any attempt to sneak up on them would be futile. In addition to that, the group leader was carrying a small piece of equipment on his left wrist which was apparently able of getting some extensive telemetry of their surroundings. Killing power to the areas surrounding the Gate room might’ve been a good idea, but the moment Eli so much as restored it to a single door knob, that little device would pick it up. And then, goodbye element of surprise.
In short, they were dealing with super-soldiers.
He felt bothered by the fact that none of these tidbits of information told them much about the four newcomers’ identity. They could be reinforcements from Earth just as much as they could Lucian Alliance or the blue aliens, like Young and Rush had theorized. Or they could even be a completely new race entirely! But even without that certainty, Eli knew his crewmates too well. It wouldn’t take long for the status quo to change, especially if these super-soldiers got too close to the Stasis compartments. Going by their current path and calm speed, it could take them up to an hour to get—
His train of though was interrupted as Colonel Young alerted Rush, out of the blue, that he was waiting no longer and would intercept the hostiles. Eli had anticipated that possibility, but it still took him by surprise. Even as Rush questioned the wisdom behind such decision, Eli decided that letting the Colonel get killed wouldn’t bode well for the crew when they woke up—and he needed to do something about it.
The foursome had already reached the Living Quarters section. He could still intercept them before Young got there.
But first, air…
“Clear!” Cain whispered into Apocalypse’s COM after scanning the room behind the closed door. Once again, Joe felt glad his heavy-weapons specialist was so into Forerunner weaponry and equipment—including the armor enhancement colloquially known among Spartans as Promethean vision.
Half of the living quarters in this corridor had been left with doors wide open. Their occupants likely hadn’t seen the point in closing them before going into cryo-sleep; no one would be left behind who could ransack their belongings during their three-year-long journey between galaxies anyway. Joe’s main concern, however, were the doors that were closed. If there were invaders aboard the ship, any closed room would be a potential hiding spot from which the enemy could easily spring a trap on them. He’d learned that lesson the hard way before even joining the military.
Cain moved on to scan the last closed room. A few seconds later, he gave a thumbs-up; that room was clear as well. Joe felt his muscles relaxing a bit, though there were still four open rooms left to examine. He signaled Apocalypse to move forward, assigning a room to each of them and picking one himself.
The Spartans crawled quickly to their respective objectives and crossed the four thresholds simultaneously. The lack of gunfire and the three green blinking lights on Joe’s HUD indicated those quarters were clear, just like the room he had entered—a small space with nothing but a stripped bed and a night table for furniture, and a small backpack with women’s clothes sticking out of it.
For a brief second, he allowed himself the luxury of letting his mind wander off as he wondered what life would be like aboard this ship. Joe and Abigail had grown close rather quickly many years ago, when she was 8 and he was 17. His becoming a UNSC Marine and later an ODST hadn’t changed that, even though it had kept them apart too often. Then, when she enlisted in the UNSC Air Force upon reaching the majority of age, their different schedules and assignments had just made things more difficult.
If it was true that the Spartans’ involvement in the mission wouldn’t really go beyond performing off-world recon from time to time, perhaps they would finally be able to spend more time together as they’d always wanted. After all, this would essentially become home. But first they had to ensure that their new home was in good condition and free of hostiles. And for that, they needed to get to the Cryo Bay.
“Hang on,” Eunice chimed in. “I’m getting atmospheric readings in the area around the next bend. Artificial gravity and trace levels of power too.”
“That’s progress,” Kingston said.
“Yeah, except those readings were nonexistent ten seconds ago.”
Joe snapped back into full-Spartan mode, his grip around his DMR tightening again. “Someone has control of the ship’s systems,” he said, clearly understanding this time what the AI was implying.
True enough, a dim light gradually started to illuminate the bend before them—and, though his motion tracker seemed clear, Joe was certain he could hear footsteps approaching cautiously. Paying extra attention to said tracker, he stood and took cover at the hall corner, his squad following closely behind. He took a deep breath and quickly aimed down the adjacent hallway.
“Whoa, please don’t shoot!” a young black-haired boy in his early twenties exclaimed, putting his hands in the air. Though visibly scared, the guy—dressed in an oversized red shirt with a phrase that read ‘YOU ARE HERE’ and just as oversized denim pants—managed to muster a shy smile. “I… come in peace?”
“Identify,” Joe demanded while signaling his team to get in position for any possible ambush.
“I’m… with the crew,” the guy said hesitantly. That wasn’t an answer, but You Are Here seemed honest enough, and Joe’s instinct told him the young man was harmless. In fact, upon closer inspection—and if one overlooked the slightly overgrown beard, slimmer frame, and overall castaway appearance—the guy looked a lot like the whiz kid who had cracked the nine-chevron puzzle, according to the briefing packet he’d read. Joe might not have had privileged eidetic memory, but he never forgot a face.
Apocalypse had undergone several War Games scenarios aboard Destiny in order to be prepared for this mission. This was certainly not one of them. Not a single crew member should’ve been awake, not with the ship in its current state anyway. But, if at least one of them was, maybe the ship was not entirely imperiled as the brass back home thought; moreover, this young man might be able to help him accomplish Apocalypse’s mission.
Still, in a mission this important, Joe had a responsibility; his job was to assess beyond any shadow of doubt that he was who he claimed to be. “Don’t move,” he commanded, keeping his DMR trained at the guy while aiming the COMPAD on his left wrist at him. “Eunice?”
“Yes?” the AI’s disembodied voice replied through the COMPAD’s minuscule speaker.
“Can you run facial recognition on this guy?”
There was a very brief moment of silence, something that was still unusual for an AI. “On… which guy?”
This is what I get for working with a civilian AI, Joe thought. “The guy standing right in front of me. Can you find him on crew records?”
Another silent second passed by. “Are you okay, Spartan? There’s—”
“Eli, what are you doing?!” a gravelly voice shouted behind the young man before Eunice could finish her sentence. Instinctively, Joe shifted his aim towards an older man standing across the hallway at the opposite corner, annoyed that he had allowed himself to get distracted by the civilian. The other person had probably crouched all the way up to that corner; it was the only way he could’ve slipped Joe’s motion sensor. ‘Eli’ had just been a textbook distraction… except for the fact that the other individual apparently hadn’t expected to see him there.
The black-haired man raised a heavy rifle in response, just as quickly as Joe had—but not before the Spartan could catch a glimpse of the name patch on his black fatigues. Between that and the unmistakable face he was now looking at, Joe knew he had found his objective. He hadn’t expected him to be out of cryo-sleep, but if he was, all the better. “Colonel Young, sir!” he exclaimed, lowering the DMR and managing a crisp salute.
“Who are you?” the older man yelled, raising an eyebrow while still aiming at Joe. The Spartan remained unfazed, knowing that his armor could soak up a whole lot of punishment from a standard weapon like the one currently trained at him.
“Spartan Joseph Rodriguez with the UNSC,” Joe replied, maintaining the salute. He figured the best way to prove to Colonel Young that he and his Spartans were no threat, although he knew the other three members of Apocalypse behind him would still be in combat positions and weapons-at-the-ready. “Your presence has been requested back home for a mission briefing, sir.”
“UNSC?” Joe heard Col. Young mutter, as if tasting the acronym. Then the man raised his voice again. “I don’t recognize the authority.”
“Does ‘Homeworld Command’ ring any bells… sir?”
In spite of himself, Joe was a little amused at Col. Young’s face as the lively AI spoke again through the COMPAD. “What was that?” the Colonel gestured at the device attached to Joe’s wrist.
“Oh where are my manners?” the AI replied before Joe could explain. “I apologize, sir, I’m Eunice. I have a little present for you from the brass back home. Maybe this can put your mind at ease?” Col. Young waited in awkward silence for a few seconds before Eunice ‘cleared her throat’ and spoke again in an exaggerated whisper. “Break the salute and raise your wrist, Spartan Rodriguez. Please.”
Through his COM, Joe heard a soft snort which could only belong to Abigail. He suppressed the urge to scoff himself. He had realized right away what Eunice meant by ‘present’. He knew the message would only play from the COMPAD’s holo-emitter, which would only work when his wrist was raised in a certain position. He also had anticipated that Eunice would likely scold the Spartan for not playing his part sooner.
Yes, he had a reputation as a stern, uptight soldier, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a sense of humor. And he hoped that this small shenanigan of his might just make for a humorous enough scene to help the Colonel lighten up a little.
Thus, he pretended for another moment to have no clue what Eunice was talking about, and then made a show of ‘realizing’ what he had to do. He broke the salute, holstered his DMR on the back of his armor, and bent his left arm up to his chest. A small hologram of a seasoned U.S. Air Force General from the Tau’ri emerged from the projector as the message started playing.
“Hey, Everett. Sleep well? Oh, what am I saying, no one ever sleeps wells on those things. Anyway, I need you to get your mental butt back here, and I need it here yesterday. There’s a whole lot o’ stuff I need you to get up-to-speed on. In the meantime, though, here’s a spoiler alert for ya: You’re getting help. Yeah, you heard that right. So, fire up that ol’ stone terminal and get over here stat, pronto, kaput.” The General’s hologram did not fade as he finished those words, not for another few seconds at least. He just stood there awkwardly until he finally added: “That’s it; you can shut that recorder o—”
Young kept the same stance even after the hologram finally disappeared, his weapon still aimed in the general direction of the ‘Spartan’. He didn’t trust these faceless soldiers, no matter how much he wanted to, not even with the message they’d just showed him. The General Jack O’Neill in that recording certainly seemed like the real deal, from the effusiveness with which he waved his hands around to the tiniest little quirks only those close to him could notice.
But all those years serving with the SGC had taught him that anything was possible with the correct alien technology—including faking a message from someone he knew and trusted. “How can I know that message is legit?” he openly challenged at last.
“You can’t,” replied the female voice that had introduced herself as Eunice. “It could be a fake, or General O’Neill could’ve been coerced into recording it. But please consider this: would a team of heavily-armored and well-armed soldiers equipped with a fourth-generation Artificial Intelligence leave you and your crew alive if we were your enemies?”
“Well, if you put it that way…” said Eli, who had already lowered his arms minutes ago. But Young would have none of it.
“Appearances may be deceiving,” Young said.
“One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor,” another hologram said as it fully materialized into existence from the soldier’s wrist device—not a pre-recorded message but an actual, seemingly living entity. She had the appearance of a young girl, no older than 20, with purple/blue skin and eyes. She had soft facial features and long, dark hair decorated with glitter, same as the sleeveless, knee-length party dress she wore.
Young figured this could be Eunice, the woman—or, rather, the AI—who had previously introduced herself. He nearly shook his head involuntarily. This was not what he would’ve expected for his first encounter with an artificial intelligence, and he certainly never would’ve expected it to be man-made or Earth-made or whatever. He’d read his fair share of mission reports from both SGC and Atlantis personnel detailing such encounters, and the general sentiment was anti-AI. Understandable, considering that one of the biggest enemies made since the discovery of the Stargate were the Replicators, and most other AI had overstepped their boundaries, mostly with SG-1. And that, perhaps, was putting it lightly.
What struck Young as uncanny about this AI was just how much it acted like a human. She had a sly smile on her face as she had said those seven words, the way one may make when they had made a breakthrough. He lowered his rifle ever so slightly, finally trying to wrap his head around the incident the blue-purple holographic humanoid might be referring to. “A fool’s paradise is a wise man’s hell,” he said eventually.
“Never run with scissors!” Eunice replied, flickering and clapping excitedly.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
Eli looked back and forth between the pair, confused. “Am I missing something here?”
Colonel Young reluctantly lowered his gun all the way and looked over at the boy. “It’s something General O’Neill and Doctor Jackson once said to each other when he was still a Colonel. It’s just useless banter to many, but it might just prove that he sent these people.” Eunice beamed at this statement, swaying from left to right her hands behind her back in a gloating manner.
He couldn’t believe it. Never in a million years would he have thought that the General would use something like that to confirm his identity. The fact was that very few even knew about the conversation; the only reason Young was among those few was because he’d heard it in passing about a decade ago, on his fourth day as a newly-instated SG team leader.
Everett had hoped for something more tangible that would give him enough reason to trust these newcomers ‘Spartans’, but those last four words the AI had spoken made the Colonel give them the benefit of the doubt…. if only for a while. Even if they were about scissors.
“It is our understanding that you need to use Ancient communication stones to contact Earth, correct?” Spartan Joe said, finally lowering his left arm which made the hologram disappear. Eunice began complaining about that while the Colonel simply nodded in response. Then the Spartan reached back for his rifle and assumed an escort stance; the other three armored soldiers followed suit. “Lead the way, sir.”
Young turned around and started walking down the same hallway he’d come from, but not before glaring at Eli. He wasn’t happy that the kid had jumped so blatantly into the line of fire, even if things had turned out good… so far. Eli looked down sheepishly and left in the opposite direction—and again Young got the feeling that something was different about Eli. Even when berated, the kid would’ve never passed up the opportunity to learn more about these super-soldiers. Yet again, he put a pin on that thought for later.
While on his way to the Communications room, he clicked on his radio twice then once. It was an all-clear signal he’d instructed Rush to keep an eye out for in case the intruders turned out not to be hostile. Young knew that Rush would’ve kept monitoring the Kino feed at the same time he transferred control of the ship to their tried-and-true secondary control room. Hopefully, now that he had the Spartans’ attention, Rush could just let the transfer continue on its own to stay with the four soldiers while he used the stones.
About five minutes later, during which no further words were exchanged, the small party reached the intended room where, indeed, Rush was already waiting—and he wasn’t alone. There was a Kino next to him, which actually helped put Young’s mind at rest a little regarding Eli. The boy wasn’t shying away from learning about the newcomers; he was just making sure to do so from a safer location. It almost made up for the stupidity of jumping in front of their guns not fifteen minutes earlier.
“Spartan Rodriguez, this is Dr. Nicholas Rush,” Young said, assuming that ‘Spartan’ was actually something of a rank or title reserved for whomever could wear such high-tech armor.
The soldier nodded respectfully at Rush but didn’t salute; after all, this was a civilian. Rush, on the other hand, didn’t even bother returning the nod. He just stared for a few seconds then continued setting up the stone terminal, or, rather, he continued pretending to do so. Noticing that the stones themselves were no longer on the table but back in their case, Young decided to join in the act. As he grabbed one of them, he whispered close to Rush’s ear. “If something goes wrong…”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the crew safe,” the scientist replied in an equally low tone.
The Colonel nodded at Rush, then at the Kino, and finally he sat on one of the stools, mentally preparing himself for the transfer. Whatever happened once the mind swap was made, he was at least confident that Rush and Eli were ready for anything. His only hope as he put the stone on the illuminated plate was that all of these concerns would end up being moot.
…
It was always weird to close his eyes and find himself transported across several million light years to a different body, usually that of an Airman; this time wasn't any different. The transfer took milliseconds, and Colonel Young found himself in a room covered with screens and monitors not unlike the ones found at the Homeworld Command Communications room. He did notice, however, that a grey color had replaced the white walls.
As he stared into the image of the person he’d just switched places with on one of the screens, he felt even more dumbfounded. The uniform he wore—black-grey, with one badge and three rank bars embroidered in gold thread on the neck, epaulettes, and cuffs, and a pair of shoulder pads and one large pauldron on the left side—looked more like Navy than Air Force, and even then, it felt foreign, out of place.
“I’m Colonel Young,” he told the Airman standing guard as he stood up, trying not to feel too bothered by such a minutia. At least something remained the same as before; SG personnel were still present here. “I need to speak to General O’Neill immediately.”
The Airman nodded. “We’ve been expecting you. This way, please, sir.” He quickly opened the door out of the room—and Young entered into the wide hallways of what looked like a Daedalus-class warship.
Young was confused. The communication room in the Milky Way had been in a section of the Pentagon. He had been assuming he was planet-side, not on a spaceship. It was rather unusual for the SGC to shift their room off-world. No, what was unusual was the fact that the hallways were considerably wider than what was standard for warships built by the SGC. Even most of the men and women walking through them did not look like the ones employed by the SGC. Steel catwalks layered over the hallway’s base which ran the entire length of it.
No, this was definitely not a Daedalus-class warship. Maybe a newer design made by SG personnel? It still didn't explain the story of the others.
Before he could ask the Airman, the two men had reached the end of the hallway. The Airman ushered the Colonel into a room guarded by two men wearing not standard SGC uniform but, instead, light-grey bulletproof vests with white shoulder and elbow pads along with white shin-guarded boots. A black utility pouch hung around their waist, equipped with grenades and a handgun the likes of which he had never seen before.
The rifle they held, on the other hand, he had seen in the hands of one of the armored people who had just boarded Destiny. Its design was unfamiliar and strange, but Colonel Young knew from experience never to judge a weapon on its appearance; the Goa’uld staff weapon was one such weapon, definitely not to be underestimated at any cost. He entered the room and the door automatically closed behind him.
“Colonel Young, I presume?”
Unexpectedly, Doctor Daniel Jackson was standing next to a table with the chair drawn back, which suggested the man had been sitting when the Colonel had entered. He stepped over to the Colonel with his hand outstretched in greeting. “It’s good to hear from you.”
Young shook the archaeologist’s hand out of courtesy, though he was now more confused by the civilian’s presence here than he’d been so far. “Dr. Jackson? What… what are you doing here? Where’s General O’Neill?"
“Oh, Jack’s back on Earth,” the archaeologist said nonchalantly. “But don’t worry; he will still be able to join us via hologram for this briefing.”
“Hologram? Dr. Jackson, what’s going on? What is this place? And who are all these people?”
“That is one of the many things we would like to discuss with you in this briefing, Colonel.”
Young gave a small, bemused chuckle. “I don’t even know what this briefing is about. Can’t you just tell… me…”
Something caught the corner of his eye. His jaw slacked off and his leg took an involuntary step forward towards a window on the other side of the room which beheld the artificial structure this ship seemed to be stationed next to. He had been so focused on Dr. Jackson and the rest of his immediate surroundings that it had completely slipped from his vision. Or maybe it had been the after-effects of the stasis pod on his consciousness. Nevertheless, the sight before him was something he would never forget for the rest of his life.
‘Massive’ couldn't even begin to describe it. Young had never been one to accurately estimate sizes; even if he had been, and if he’d tried to calculate the diameter of the impossibly perfect ring-shaped construct, he was sure he would’ve been off. But the size wasn’t really what took his breath away; it was its inner surface, green and blue and white, covered in oceans and landmasses with all kinds of different environments. A magnificent artificial world that couldn’t have been created by human hands—or even Ancient hands, if what they knew of that alien race was any indication. It certainly couldn’t have been created by these people… or at least he imagined so.
So… who had built this? And, more to the point, where were its builders? Could they also be close by, perhaps aboard this very ship?
“You will find that much has changed in the last three-and-a-half years,” Dr. Jackson said.