Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 102

Chapter 102 - Just Another Tuesday - Part 2

“So worst case scenario.” Mitchell began, his voice momentarily drowning out the sound of their steps “What are we looking at?”

“That's unfortunately subjective.” Eventus admitted, stopping as they came to a four way intersection of similarly identical corridors to check the map he had been building on his tablet. “Personally though, I really hope it's not one of the semi-sentient predator types that try to drive you towards emotional extremes using mental illusions so they can feast on the excess psionic energy.”

Those things were always particularly nasty to deal with, especially when they used those mental illusions to drive people into insane frenzy’s.

“Okay, different question then.” Mitchell continued, following along behind the others as Eventus turned down the left passageway. “How many of the things that we might encounter here are vulnerable to bullets?”

That was actually a good question, and Eventus stopped for a moment to mentally go over all the various things they could potentially run into in circumstances like this.

“You’re probably going to want to switch to your Zat’s.”

He couldn’t guess just how effective the Goa’uld weapons would be since he hadn’t had a chance to go over the technology yet. But electrical energy in general tended to be a lot more effective against things from different dimensional phases than physical matter.

“All right.” Mitchell nodded, taking a moment to check the safety on his P90 before slinging it over his shoulder. “You’re the–”

The sudden way Mitchell trailed off was enough to make Eventus glance back, and his eyes instantly zeroed in on the glowing blow and yellow centipede-like insect crawling through the wall that seemed to have captured the Colonel’s attention.

“Hey.” Mitchell suddenly began. “What are the chances this place has one of those devices your people made that let them see interdimensional insects?”

“You mean like the device SG1 recovered from P9X-391?” Daniel asked with a frown as he watched the creature disappear into the wall opposite from where it had entered.

“Yeah.” Mitchell confirmed, keeping a firm eye on the spot where the insect had just disappeared.”

“I’m sorry to say that description doesn’t narrow things down nearly as much as you might think.” Eventus offered with a bemused shake of his head. “But that, was a Zechchenoa. They exist naturally in a dimension directly adjacent to our own. That we’re seeing one suggests either we’ve had our perception altered in some manner, or we’re in an area of dimensional overlap.”

He sighed. “Given what this place was researching however, I’d guess the second.”

“So is that good or bad?” Mitchell asked cautiously.

Eventus offered the group a wry grin. “Surprisingly? Good. It means all we'll likely have to deal with are the equivalent of non-sentient animals that may try to eat us.”

Unless of course the dimensional overlap got worse, in which case it was possible they'd have things from the deeper layers start showing up.

“These animals.” Vala suddenly interjected consideringly. “Do they all glow like that giant bug that crawled through?”

“Technically yes.” Eventus confirmed with a nod. “Though it's actually a dimensional halo effect and not any kind of bioluminescence."

Vala pursed her lips. “There wouldn't happen to be one that looks like a cross between a dog and a lion, would there?”

“I guess there are a couple types that could sort of be described like that.” Eventus confirmed after mentally going over the various ones his people had encountered over the millennium. 

Daniel narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the bodyswapped woman. “Vala, no.”

“Oh come on, Daniel.” She whined. “I bet I could get us an entire Ha'tak for a breeding pair of glowing liondogs.”

“From who!?” The Archeologist exclaimed, throwing his arms up in exasperation. 

“Would you believe a couple of Yu's old concubines?” Vala answered with an overly innocent smile.

Daniel blinked, seemingly taken back by her answer for reasons Eventus couldn't place.

“Actually, I would.” He grudgingly admitted before grimacing. “But they were all killed by Ba'al when he seized Lord Yu's former territory.”

Vala made a face. “Not all of them.”

“As interesting a conversation as this is.” Eventus put forward, because he’d always been a bit interested in finding out what exactly had happened to the Goa’uld as a generality after the system lords collapsed. “I’m sorry to say those specific kinds of extra-dimensional creatures don’t tend to keep well in our dimension without a lot of technological assistance.”

All of the others were shooting him an odd look now, and Eventus shrugged. “We had a zoo, my mother took me when I was seven in hopes that it would prompt me to follow in her footsteps and go into multi-dimensional research.”

It hadn’t, while the creatures were interesting and multi-dimensional studies had always held an interest to him given the circumstances of his birth. Finding out about the accidental death rate for people in that particular branch of research had almost instantly soured him on anything to do with it.

“A zoo?” Daniel repeated with a slight frown.

“It was the closest analogue.” Eventus said, motioning for the others to follow as he started walking again. 

As much as it probably looked like it to the other three, he wasn’t exactly navigating his way through the facility blind. There were enough common design philosophies at play with other facilities he’d been to that he could use those as reference points. Which was why, after another few minutes of walking, he was about 80% sure that the unassuming set of double doors they had just come up to would lead to the facility’s main control room.

Tapping the flush wall panel next to the door, he raised an eyebrow as the distinct sound of a mechanical lock cycling reached his ears before the doors almost grudgingly parted to reveal the room behind them.

It was clear from the small size of the octagonal room that he had somewhat misjudged things and led them to what was probably a secondary control hub at best. But the large displays inset into the three farthest walls and the consoles below them were all alight with activity. So that would hopefully be enough to at least get a general handle on the facility's circumstances.

“Gotta admit.” Mitchell offered as he took in the room. “I expected a bit more given the size of the place.”

Eventus grinned as he made his way over to the central station. “I believe your people have a joke about how it’s not the size of a thing that matters, so much as how you use it.”

Vala let out a barely restrained giggle as Daniel sighed.

“Okay.” He put forward after taking a moment to go over the information that had been actively displayed on the screen when they arrived. “To my complete lack of surprise the facility is in a category two lockdown which according to the alert was initiated due to a failure of various containment fields that occurred roughly…”

He did some mental math to calculate the dates.

“Three point seven million years ago.”

Mitchell nodded. “So basically you’re saying we have a Halo situation here.”

Glancing over his shoulder to where Mitchell had positioned himself near the door, Eventus shot the Colonel an odd look. “Isn’t that one of your people’s video games?”

“Yup.” Mitchell confirmed. “Earth ship crashes on this giant Forerunner ringworld, then while trying to figure out how to escape they lift an ancient lockdown and release a bunch of killer greeblies that go on to try to murder them.”

Eventus considered that for a moment before giving a reluctant nod of agreement. “Yeah, knowing how these things go from past experience that’s probably what will happen if I lift the lockdown.”

“Easy solution then.” Vala said as she causally walked up next to him. “Just don’t lift the lockdown.”

“That’s certainly an option.” Eventus agreed since it wasn’t really needed unless he wanted full systems access. “But given the way these things work, someone is bound to do it eventually. Either the Earthlings because they want to explore the station fully and believe they can handle it. Or some other spacefaring power who will sneak on board in an attempt to seize the technology inside for themselves.”

“And you don’t think we could handle it?” Mitchell asked in a slightly defensive tone.

“Eventually, sure.” Eventus said, tapping a few keys to bring up the lights to daytime levels like he’d promised. “I know from going over your mission logs that your people have access to trans-phasic weaponry. Which should be able to handle most things you’re likely to encounter here that your ballistic weaponry can’t.”

“But we’d probably lose people doing it.” Daniel added in, seeming to understand what Eventus was getting at without him having to say it directly.

“Almost surely.” Eventus agreed. “In a perfect world I’d probably just set the reactor on this place to overload and let that wipe out everything. But the facility specifications I’m seeing are telling me that the idiots who designed the station utilized a subspace energy tap for primary power generation. And overloading that given the already existent thinness of the dimensional barriers here would likely tear a hole in the universe.”

“Could we just nuke the place?” Mitchell asked. “The Prometheus has a full complement of mark eights that could probably do the job.”

Eventus shook his head. “Same problem as long as the energy tap is still active.” 

Daniel sighed. “And let me guess, you can’t shut it down unless you lift the lockdown?”

“Welcome to the past four hundred years of my life.” Eventus returned with a grin. “I’d offer you an honorary maintenance corps badge, but I don’t have any with me.”

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Author’s Notes: To be fair to the Ancients who built the place, the extra thinning of the dimensional barriers caused by the subspace energy tap was a helpful function instead of a detrimental feature. But of course isn't that just the way of things?