Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Oops

“We look like Power Rangers.” Grodin complained over the breathers communications link as they trudged through one of the flooded levels of the undercity.

Eventus could see where Grodin was coming from with the near skin tight nature of the aqua suits and the fact their helmets tended towards the same general shape and visored type design that the Ancient recalled that franchise favoring.

“I have no idea what that is.” He lied with an amused tone as he stopped at an intersection for a moment before continuing down the left path that would lead them to the emergency drainage controls that should clear the way enough to allow them access to the water tight maintenance depot.

“It’s a television show.” McKay interjected as he clutched the waterproof bag with his tablet almost like a protective talisman. “For kids. How long did you say the air in these things lasts again?”

Even though he knew none of them could see it, Eventus rolled his eyes. “I didn’t, but the short answer is forever. The long answer is that the helmet converts the heat in the water into energy and uses that to keep the air constantly refreshed. With a backup micro-crystal powercell for cases where you end somewhere it can’t directly do that. Without those sources of energy however, the helmet's internal oxygen reserves would last about six hours.”

“Oh.” McKay muttered bemusedly. “That’s not nearly as bad as I was afraid it was going to be.”

“I must admit.” Teyla interjected, sounding mildly intrigued as she looked around the small atrium they had just entered. “I did not expect the waters to be this clear.”

“They aren’t.” Eventus explained as he walked over to the generic wall panel that covered up the otherwise unsightly manual controls and began to pull it off. “What we’re actually seeing is a visual interpretation of the helmet's sensor returns projected across the crystal lattice of the visor.”

Setting the wall panel down, he took a moment to run a visual check of the revealed mechanisms before giving a nod. “Okay, I’m not seeing any corrosion, so there shouldn’t be any problem with the pumps manual activation. Just brace yourself against something in case the flow gets too strong.”

Waiting a moment for the three to follow his direction, he removed the locking pin from the lever and then pulled it down.

His helmet's audio sensors relayed a clunk, then a thunk, and finally the sound of rapidly flowing water as the entire floor began to drain.

It took nearly five minutes for the corridors to empty completely, and Eventus had to hold back a wince at what that said about the state of the city’s drainage systems. “I swear, you’d think this place got hit by a hurricane on top of everything else.”

The silence at his seemingly off the cuff remark was amusingly telling, though if he recalled right that particular bit of flooding hadn’t been entirely their fault.

“We had an unfortunate encounter with the Genii earlier this year that may have contributed to the partially flooded state of the city.” Teyla tactfully confessed as the last of the water finished draining to leave only the occasional puddle dotting the floor.

“So you're saying you want me to wipe these, Genii, from existence?” Eventus put forward teasingly as he replaced the wall panel and began walking to the maintenance depot. “That seems like a pretty big thing to ask given I only know of a handful of our warships that might still be around.”

And of those only the Hippaforalkus and Kratos were sure things given all the time that had passed.

“Your people still have warships around?” Teyla inquired calmly as McKay made a sound like he had just tasted something particularly sour.

“We did ten thousand years ago when we began the evacuation.” Eventus said as they came up to the heavy double doors of the maintenance depot. “There was one in an underground drydock with engine issues, one in wide orbit of a solar system with a rather serious radiation leak, one abandoned on a vacuum moon after its inertial dampeners failed, one caught in the temporal distortion zone of a singularity, and one that had to be abandoned on the planet it landed on after being infested by dream parasites.”

That last was one he would suggest they nuke from orbit if it was still around, because fuck if he was going to deal with those things without two full hazard teams and a fully qualified parasitical lifeform treatment specilist at the ready.

“You're making that last one up just to mess with us.” McKay muttered in disbelief as Eventus opened up the control panel next to the door and pulled down the lever that would disengage the environmental seal.

With the hiss of a minor pressure differential being equalized the doors slid open to reveal a large room festooned with storage shelves, crates, control crystals, and eldritch machinery.

“Is that a ZPM?” Grodin asked in shock as he stared at the Potentia that was braced on one of the work benches.

“It's 99.99997% of the way to maximum entropy.” Eventus explained as he walked through the doorway, breathing a silent sigh of relief when the room sensed his presence and brought the lights up and started up the air circulation without issue. “Furrina was trying to see if she could reverse the energy flow to the still existent region of isolated subspace-time to use as a disposal location for exotic particles generated by a different energy generation project.”

His idea actually, but unfortunately she hadn't been able to figure out a way to overcome the space-time pressure differential between their universe and the pocket dimension on anything approaching the scale necessary to bring the idea to the Council as even a basic proof of concept.

“It should be safe to remove your helmets now if you want.” He told them as he pulled off his own and hung it on one of the hooks by the door. “Just think ‘helmet release’, or use the emergency release control on the bracer.”

“So what exactly does this generator we're looking for look like?” McKay inquired as he quickly followed suit. 

“An elongated oval.” Eventus began as he strode over to his own work table and began rummaging through the drawers for his spare personal shield. “About as long as I am tall, a third as wide, that's made of the same material as planetary dialing devices.”

“It generates power equivalent to a little over seventeen of the cold fusion cores in those.” He continued as he pulled out the small device he was searching for and slipped it into one of the equipment pouches on the aqua suits belt. 

McKay paused in his trek to a shelf full of blank control crystals as his brow furrowed in thought. “That would be… Not enough to run the shield or dial Earth even with our naquada generators supplementing it…”

“Eh.” Eventus made a so-so motion with his hand. “You could bypass the system safeties and create a limited shield around key areas of the city. But dialing another galaxy, even one as close by as the one you came from, would be absolutely out of the question.”

It was just a portable generator for emergencies after all, the six in his proposal would have each been around the size of a human freight container, and they would have still needed the full number to match the output of even a single potentia.

“Is there anything that we should be particularly wary of in our search?” Teyla asked as her eyes surveyed the room cautiously.

“We secured everything that could kill someone if turned on wrong in the secure storage units in the back of the depot before leaving.” Eventus offered, though there was something about her question that made him feel like he was forgetting something. “Other than those, I can’t really think of anything that might–”

A bright flash of pink light interrupted him before he could finish, the particular color enough to bring the memory of just what it was that he had forgotten to warn them about to the fore, and he turned with a visible cringe to see a young woman in an aqua suit staring dumbly at the small pyramid she had picked up.

“Sorry Grodin.” He apologized as Teyla and McKay did their level best to put as much distance between themselves and the former man as physically possible. “Thalia liked her jokes, that should wear off in ten or so days.”

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Author’s Notes: Have another chapter before I disappear into the Dragon Age hole for a few days.