Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 100

Chapter 100 - Ancient Mystery’s 

The terraforming facility on Venus and the mining facility inside Jupiter's atmosphere had been functionally unreachable without a heavy duty transport vessel. Which just left the dimensional research facility in orbit of Pluto, a location Eventus had been loath to approach in the Jumper given the Atrokiri records listed it as a high security site.

Luckily the SGC didn’t seem too adverse to lending him the Prometheus’s shields as a bulwark against any still active defenses that might not accept his various command codes.

“I thought Pluto only had one moon?.” Colonel Mitchell muttered as he stared at the five orbital paths being displayed on one of the Prometheus navigational monitors.

“They've been holding back on announcing the others.” Colonel Pendergast put forward.

“It's the small oblong one.” Eventus said, tapping the moon in question. “Direct the code string there using subspace band Q-38.”

“Take us a thousand miles out from Styx.” Pendergast ordered, and the starscape out the forward window swung around as they turned and began accelerating. 

Given they had already been in orbit of Pluto, it only took a few moments for the ship to reach their destination, not that any of them could see it given the general lack of light this far out.

“Since you can’t do ship-wide holographic projectors like us, you should see about putting a transparent digital screen over the window so you can overlay interpolated sensor data in a way that makes far off things easy to see.” Eventus offered helpfully. “We use a similar system on the Jumpers, and it makes things so much easier for everyone involved.”

“It’s on the wishlist.” Pendergast admitted before nodding to the female officer sitting next to him. “Womack, send out the coded signal.”

Seconds ticked by with no reaction, and only for a blinding light to suddenly fill the window, clearing just in time for them to see a rapidly approaching wall of yellow plasma.

“Brace for impact!” Pendergast yelled, and Eventus clutched the nearest chair back just in time for the wave of energy to hit them.

The ship shook, lights dimming slightly as the power drain from the vessel's shield ramped up to deflect the charged particles away it's hull.

Pendergast's head snapped over to glare at Eventus. “What was that!?”

“I don't know.” Eventus honestly confessed, staring out at the dimly glowing spot he could just barely see. “All that code was supposed to do was direct the facility to stand down its security and prepare for docking.”

“Um, sir?” Womack suddenly interjected. “The moon, it's gone.”

“What do you mean gone?” Pendergast asked, frowning in confusion as he focused his gaze back on the woman.

“I mean it's gone” Womack repeated, sounding nearly as confused about it as Pendergast looked. “There's nothing there now but empty space.”

It was Eventus's turn to frown, because even though it was faint, it was clear to his eyes that there was something out there.

He walked over to the station the young woman was sitting at and motioned to it. “May I?” 

The ship's captain considered his request for a moment before giving a cautious nod. “Switch with him, Womack.”

She unbuckled her chair's harness and got to her feet, allowing Eventus to slide into her station and begin going through the data.

“Are this ship's sensors the same as those in the Daedalus?”

“Technically yes.” Pendergast confirmed. “However our power systems are only capable of one third the output of the three-oh-four class, so our fidelity and distance isn't anywhere near theirs.”

That was unfortunate, as the extra power would have certainly been nice to have given what he was starting to suspect had happened with the moon. Though thankfully it shouldn't be needed for the modifications he was planning on making to the ships sensors suite.

For all that the sensor systems on the ship were of Asgard design, he doubted it was anywhere near the pinnacle of the race's technology. There were just too many gaps and inefficiencies in the way they worked for it to be otherwise.

Luckily, a lot of those gaps could be filled in with various bits of additional programming and a few more efficient mathematical equations.

“Okay.” He finally said as he ceded the chair back to the still patiently waiting Womack. “I adjusted the charge cycle of the Narion emitters so you wouldn't end up with so many counter spin particle collisions. Zeroed out the Lepton spread to allow for phase variance pickup. And optimized the field equations you were using so you should be able to cover an additional twelve percent of the EMGFS spectrum.”

“And that bit of technobabble means?” Mitchell asked with a frown.

Eventus sighed and pointed at the still dimly glowing light outside the window. “It means I improved your sensors so they should be able to pick up whatever that is.”

Both Colonels followed his finger, only to glance back in confusion at him after only a few seconds.

“There's nothing there.” Mitchell put forward skeptically.

“What do you…” Eventus began, only to flash slightly in embarrassment as the realization hit. “Oh… Right… Humans…”

“Just like mama made us.” Mitchell confirmed in amusement.

“We're picking up something in that general direction now.” Womack offered somewhat hesitantly. “I think.”

“You think?” Pendergast pressed. 

“The sensors are cycling between saying there’s something there, and saying there’s nothing there.” Womack explained apologetically.

Pendergast furrowed his brown in thought before nodding to himself as he seemed to come to some decision. “Marks, take us a hundred miles from where we’re getting the return, I wanna try and see what our Ancient friend is seeing with my own eyes.”

The Prometheus crept forward, quickly covering the distance before once again coming to a stop. This close, Eventus could actually make out significant details from the structure, and what he saw was enough to put him instantly on guard. 

Most of the light seemed to be originating from a still scintillating shield, which at a guess had just finished been used to plasmify several miles of built up rock, ice, and debris.

Inside the protective energy field stood a nearly five mile diameter station somewhat similar in shape to the collapsed form of what the humans would call an Armillary Sphere. Though the way it lacked any sort of central sphere suggested the entire structure was likely a focusing array for the central point instead of an artistic choice on the designer's part.

“Wow.” Mitchell muttered in shock. “You Ancients sure didn’t build things small.”

“We did.” Eventus admitted, not liking what he was seeing in the slightest given his experience with smaller mechanisms of similar make. “But this was built tens of millions of years ago, so the various technologies involved probably weren’t as mature as they would have been in my time.”

“Are we picking up any signals?” Pendergast inquired as he squinted.

“No.” Womack shook her head. “But the sensors are at least getting a static return from the station now.”

“Try sending a general docking request alongside the second code string I gave you.” Eventus suggested. “It’s a high security station, so it’s probably waiting for us to either confirm that we’re authorized to be here or attempt to force our way in.”

“And if we don’t do either?” Pendergast cautiously asked.

Eventus shot the Colonel an odd look, not particularly sure just what the man might be implying with the question. “Then it’ll eventually go back into dormancy mode until someone wakes it up again.”

Pendergast frowned at Eventus for a moment before nodding. “All right then. Womack, transmit the second code with a docking request.”

The woman gave a nod of confirmation before entering the requisite command string into her station.

Almost instantly the shield flickered out, casting the entire structure into darkness that lasted mere moments before a series of lights began strobing in sequence across the station’s outer surface. Finally gathering together, they formed a blinking ring on the nearly two mile high structure’s outer edge that slowly began to open to show a well lit interior bay that could easily accommodate the Prometheus while twin holographic dashes shot out as guiding lines to bracket their vessel.

“So.” Eventus began in a slightly drawn out tone as he fought back a smile at the overly dramatic docking procedure. “Do you want to take the whole ship in? Or should I just go in the Jumper?”

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Author’s Notes: So begins the start of several dozen sci-fi horror games and a very standard sort of mission for Eventus.