Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 39

Chapter 39 - Overworked and Unpaid

All but collapsing onto the plush chair in the quarters he had taken over, Eventus let out a tired sigh as he took a moment to just relax.

“I certainly know that sigh.” Captain Herius said as his hologram snapped into existence a few feet away from Eventus's chair. “How long have you been going without a rest week?”

“It's been twenty-one days since I was pulled out of stasis.” Eventus offered, knowing there was no point in hiding that when the man could just ask one of the others.

“And before that?” Herius asked in an expectant tone that said Eventus's deliberate choice of words hadn't gone unnoticed.

Wincing at having been caught, Eventus let out another sigh. “A couple cycles I think. Once the siege began my team was busy pretty much non-stop ” 

They'd still had downtime of course, but only in the sense of a group of emergency responders who were constantly on call because at any moment something could go horribly wrong.

Herius let out a sigh of his own. “I would criticize how that's several cycles over the suggested limit, but we're not exactly in much better shape on the Aurora given the length of our mission.”

Which reminded him, even with his High Councilor authorization there hadn't been any details in Atlantis's database about just what the Aurora's mission had been. Meaning it had either been mind storage only, one of the things hidden away in the classified database brought back to Avalon, or purposefully erased. None of which suggested good things since they all pointed towards something that would have been against one or more proscriptions.

“I'm sorry to add this on top of everything else.” He told the Captain as he turned an apologetic look to the hologram. “But I'm going to need to know just what that mission was.”

Frowning, Herius stared at Eventus for a moment before shaking his head. “I wish I could, but all I know is that it had something to do with data collected by someplace called Oculus station.”

That was less than helpful given the name meant nothing to Eventus.

“I could point you to the coordinates we encountered the station itself at.” Herius continued with a grimace as he sat down on an invisible chair. “But that's not likely to help since it arrived at the location about a week after we did via one of the old negative mass drives.”

Given the name it had probably been a sensor array of some kind, probably circling the galaxy if the Aurora's former position at the galaxy's outer edge was taken into consideration. However that meant the possibility of actually locating it without knowing it's flight itinerary was functionally non-existent since it was almost impossible to track something using that particular method of faster than light travel.

“What about the data?” Eventus inquired hopefully, recalling that it should still be intact since they had gotten to the Aurora before the Wraith.

“In a datafile secured to Council access.” Herius confirmed in a somewhat apologetic tone. “So if any of us want to see it, we'll first have to run the contingency program in Atlantis.”

“Already did.” Eventus admitted with a shrug. “I'm now the youngest High Councilor in thirty million years.”

The look Herius gave him at that was equal parts pity and concern, not exactly the most reassuring emotions to see given the circumstance, but Eventus supposed in Herius's position he would likely feel the same.

“I'll admit.” Herius put forward with a semi-relieved grin. “I was somewhat afraid it would end up being me given my crew would have likely voted such.”

The fact that he didn't even seem to consider cutting that off at the knees by just not running left Eventus to wonder just how deep the captain's feelings of responsibility went.

“All but one of the Council positions are still open if you want to put your name in?”

“All but one?” Herius inquired as he shot Eventus an odd look.

Amusement all but radiated off of Eventus at finally having someone to share that particular bit of insanity with. “Apparently one of the Ascended registered one of the human descendants from Terra as a Lantean citizen a few months back. So when I ran the vote his name came up for the position as military councilor.”

He'd laughed for a good five minutes upon finding Chaya Sar's name in the citizen registration logs, since as far as within the rules fuck you's went, that was a pretty good one.

“A worrying occurrence.” Heirius muttered as his brow furrowed in thought. “The Ascended do not take action without dire need.”

“Apparently that somewhat changed after some of those who returned to Terra Ascended.” Eventus returned with a shrug, leaving out what he knew of the various punishments that had led to that.

A grim smile graced the corners of Herius's lips. “I suppose change must eventually come to even those who most avoid it. As to attempting to take one of the open Council positions, I see no rush to make a decision given it will be some years till we are all in a state to leave the stasis pods.”

“There is some evidence that Janus is still alive somewhere in Avalon.” Eventus added innocently.

“Though I admit I have often considered the good I could do in a Councilor position.” Herius continued without missing a beat.

“To expand a bit.” Eventus went on, glad he had thought to actually ask about the story behind the ZPM. “The humans apparently found a working time machine built by him on a planet in the Avalon galaxy, nearby several obelisks he carved detailing the future history of the planet.”

“I'll discuss the issue with my crew.” Herius acquiesced with a sigh. “Truely, the things the rest of the council let that man get away with would vex anyone with sense.”

He likely didn’t even know a quarter of it, but given the nature of the various things Eventus had cleaned up over the centuries that was probably for the best.

“Speaking of issues being discussed with your crew, have you come up with a priority list for regeneration treatments?”

“Yes.” Herius confirmed with a somewhat sad smile. “I had to practically force my second officer to take the command slot. The crew wanted me in it, but I’m a good ten to twenty cycles biologically older than the rest of them.”

Which Eventus knew meant it would take at least four to six months longer before his biological age would hit a point where he wasn’t in danger of falling over dead if removed from the pod.

“For the rest it was decided on an equal combination of engineering and medical officers with the last slot being filled by our cultural contact officer.”

A perfectly by the book decision, though in this case the only real objection Eventus would have had was with their cultural contact officer, though he supposed Doctor Weir would probably appreciate it given her own speciality had a somewhat similar bent.

“Your head engineer was from Ubar, wasn’t she?” He inquired, the relative rarity of someone from one of the city ships ending up in the military that early in the war noteworthy enough that it had stood out when he’d been going over the crew's files.

“She was.” Herius confirmed. “But I’m sorry to say she only has experience working on secondary systems.”

Completely expected given she wouldn’t have been allowed on the front lines if she had knowledge about cityship primary systems due to the risks of the Wraith capturing her and taking that information from her mind.

“Anything’s better than nothing at this point.” Eventus said, letting out a silent sigh of relief at the sheer amount of work that would take off his plate. “At a minimum she can act as the controller for the repair drones.”

Could his people have had the city itself run the repair drones, absolutely, but a direct interface between between a city ship's virtual intelligence and any drones capable of system modification had been deemed far too much of a risk by the Council, and removing all those safeguards now would be a couple year job at a minimum.

Herius slumped down in his invisible chair as something all of the sudden seemed to hit him. “We’re really all that’s left then.”

“So far.” Eventus admitted as the tiredness that he had been feeling earlier came back with a sudden vengeance. “I set Atlantis to run various searches before I left, and I’m hoping to get back to Terra soon to run a similar check using any surviving systems there. But unless those end up finding something, it’s just us and the various descendants.”

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Author’s Notes: A bit of a sad note to end the chapter on, but he’s holding back mentioning the Tria since Herius would push for an immediate rescue and he really doesn’t want to deal with them till he has all his ducks in a row. Something completely fair given the ship's crew was from later in the war.