Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 46

Chapter 46 - Flight or Flight Part 3

The odd electronic swish of the transport rings descending back into the floor was the only sound that greeted Major Evan Lorne upon transporting onto the Navis. And even though the life signs detectors had cleared the ring room, he took a moment to pan his weapons around to double check before lowering it and giving an all clear motion to the rest of their four man team.

“I told you it was clear.” McKay muttered, his voice not even slightly distorted by the Lantean speaker system transmitting his voice out of the armored suit.

“Better safe than sorry.” Evan returned before frowning slightly at the glowing door interface. “Thought Eventus said the ship was on lockdown?” 

There was a lot they'd have to be on the lookout for if it wasn't, and he really didn't want to have to deal with the smug I told you so's from McKay if they ended up gassed or being dosed by radiation from the suddenly active engines.

“It's only basic systems.” McKay offered after a moment. “Life support, lights.” He tapped a heavy boot on the deck. “Artificial gravity. They can be turned on and off by anyone so long as they have the right technical know-how. Anything more than that is going to need you or me to sit in one of the control chairs first.”

“Assuming they haven't figured out some way around that.” Evan put forward as he took a moment to check the life signs detector again before walking over and tapping the control to open the door.

“Looks like they're on the bridge. Stevens, Walker, you're with me. McKay, I want you to head down to the auxiliary control room and hole up there.”

“Hold on!” McKay objected in sudden alarm as Evan began to move, causing him to pause and glance over his shoulders at the armored scientist. “Why am I going along!?”

“Because you're the one wearing the Ancient super suit.” Evan returned simply as he motioned for the other two to follow him. 

It would have been nice if they could all wear them, but he hadn't thought to conduct any training drills in the suits. And he wasn't going to send his people into a potential combat situation wearing technology they weren't trained to operate.

“How is that fair?” McKay groused to himself as the rest of them exited the room.

Thankfully the Ancients had designed Navis with the same deck plan as the Enterprise, so even with the transport booths inactive it didn't take them more than a few minutes to make their way to the corridor outside the ships bridge.

Quietly sliding up against the wall and making his way over to the doorway, he took a moment to listen to the muted voices he could just make out coming from within.

“And that's if we're lucky.” A male voice said, his tone sounding particularly annoyed with whatever question it was that he was responding to.

“I don't care.” The voice of Larrin returned snappishly. “Just get it done.”

That didn't sound good, so it was probably for the best if he stepped in before desperation pushed the woman to do something they would all regret. Motioning for Stevens and Walker to flank the doorway, he took a moment to steel himself before walking onto the bridge.

“Having trouble with something?” He asked as shot the attractive woman in charge his best disarming smile.

Two revolver like energy weapons snapped to point at him as twin whines of a ready to discharge capacitor filled the room, the weapons wielders Larrin and a balding man, while another somewhat squirrely looking man with some sort of computer interface sat off to the side.

“Who are…” Larrin began, only to furrow her brow in seeming recognition. “You're one of those so called Lanteans.”

“Not exactly.” He corrected, making sure to keep his hands distinctly away from the P90 slung over his shoulder. “I'm Major Evan Lorne, from Earth. The Lantean's Eventus, who's funnily enough also sometimes called Evan.”

He knew that extra bit wasn't necessarily needed, but long experience had taught him that people often let their guards down if they thought you were nothing more than just a nice guy trying to be helpful.

Frowning, Larrin used her free hand to reach for a rectangular device on her belt and brought it up to her face. “Kirren, we have an uninvited guest. I thought I said to keep an eye out for anyone trying to sneak over here?”

“I have been.” A female voice snapped out from the communicator. “No ships or suits to be seen, and the only thing the Ancestral warship has done is blanket the area with scanning beams powerful enough I'd be surprised if someone couldn't pick them up a solar-system over.”

Evan hadn't known whether they’d be able to detect the matter stream from the rings or not, but that suggested even if they normally could have, the Enterprise's scans had drowned it out. A useful bit of information on the general weakness of their technology, though he doubted it was one any of Earth's ships could take advantage of given the vast difference between them and the sort of ships the Ancients built.

“You could just ask, you know.” He put forward. “We really don't want to fight you about this whole thing. And I'm pretty sure Eventus was being serious with his offer to help you run away to another galaxy.”

Which was an odd thought to consider, but Evan had noticed early on that Eventus never offered something he didn't think he was capable of actually pulling off.

“Might want to check your lies.” Larrin scoffed as she hooked the communicator back on her belt. “We've had years to look over this vessel, and even Ancestor hyperdrives weren't capable of crossing the void between galaxies in anything approaching the time needed to pull that off.”

Given the Ancient’s odd choice to only start installing intergalactic hyperdrives on their ships at the very tail end of the war, Evan could see how she might have come to that conclusion. But he'd done the math, and the Enterprise at least could outpace the Daedalus's standard Hyperdrive speed by a good twenty percent when it wasn't towing another ship.

“This wasn't one of their intergalactic ships.” He offered in a helpful tone. “And he was planning to ask some little grey friends of ours to help out.”

“Little… Grey…” Larrin repeated in seeming confusion before her eyes went wide with fear and she flicked a switch on her weapon. 

“You're allied with the Vanir!?” She demanded angrily.

“No?” He returned uncertainly, making a subtle motion with one of his hands so Walker and Stevens would know to hold back. “I was talking about a race called the Asgard, nice people, a little standoffish at times, but one of their ships once towed one of ours four million light years in about five hours.”

He recognized the name Vanir however from Stargate Command’s Norse studies primer, and he made a mental note to report the name drop back to Doctor Weir when they returned to Atlantis so she could ask Heimdall if there was any connection.

“I really don’t care who you're talking about.” Larrin said, belaying her words by thumbing the switch back to it's precious position. “Nevik, make sure the ships transmitters are disabled, I don't want that–

She stopped dead, sniffing the air for a moment as an alarmed look flashed across her face. “There's something wrong with the atmosphere processors! We need to–

She fell to the ground with a thud, the other two following suit moments later as the world began to waver for Evan before he felt his legs collapse as darkness overtook him.

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Author's Notes: Hey, McKay did something right for a change. Maybe. At least, assuming Lorne didn't have the issue generally under control. But it wouldn't be McKay without some level of overreaction.