Episode Twenty Eight: Sentient

[Troy Loveridge]

1836
Control Room

Just for a change, Troy would have liked something to go off with a hitch.

The journey of the City of Akrotiri from Asphodel back to the Delta Site had so far been smooth. In order to not burn out their still damaged engines a number of smaller jumps had been planned rather than one long one, and for the first half a dozen jumps they'd been fine. Right of schedule and all lights on the control board in the green.

Just as always happened when his and his people tried to do something, it went wrong. The colonel had been a moment away from authorising the next jump when a call had come across the room that they'd lost engine power. The greens lights that littered the control room one-by-one turned red, and general chaos had erupted. Scientists and technicians rushed between stations, trying to yell over each other and try to figure out what was happening. It was the eternal curse of the expedition - everything that could go wrong, would go wrong.

A glimmer of hope had appeared on their long range scanners in the form of an abandoned alien vessel that may hold the parts needed to fix the engines, and SD-2 had been dispatched to grab anything and everything that would help get the city-ship back on it's way again.

Of course, before the engines could be repaired they needed to know what was wrong with them. "ALRIGHT!" Troy called over the multiple heated and confused conversations that were being carried out all through the control room. All conversations ceased, and those present turned to the colonel. "Alright," he added, a little more sheepishly. "Moments ago we had engines and propulsion, and now we don't." He used his hands to create two imaginary points in the air in front of him, representing the point in time when they had engines, and the point when the didn't.

"We have an incomplete timeline. We need to fill in what happened between then and now. What have we got?"

< Tag Base Personnel >

[Zane Cobb]

1836
Control Room

Zane sat in front of the control panel - fingers interlaced. The expression on his face could only be described as defeated. He had watched as the readings had started to twist off. He had tried to fix it. He had failed. It wasn't his responsibility alone - but still. This was annoying, to say the least.

His dark eyes shifted to their magical Overlord - Loveridge - began to speak in the control room. It was at first somewhat forceful and violent, which caused the young computer expert to jump slightly, but eventually Loveridge faded into something a bit less 'screamy'.

"Moments ago we had engines and propulsion, and now we don't," he stated, as Cobb continued to peek over his knuckles at the man, "We have an incomplete timeline. We need to fill in what happened between then and now. What have we got?"

With a few swipes of his fingers, Zane pulled up the records.

"Basically everything was perfectly fine," Zane began, his voice moving faster than normal, "...sir, until about six minutes ago," he moved some of the readings around and brought up the latest part, "It's as if things fell out of...well...rhythm. I tried to counter it the best I could, but anything I tried seemed to make it...well...worse, to be honest. So I stopped about four minutes ago. That's when the temperature gauges started to get out of whack. Then everything sort of..." Zane made an explosion sound and motion with his fingers.

Zane felt a bit uneasy about sharing this news, for it made it appear as if he was at fault for their current 'dead in water' state - while in reality it was out of his control. But he was so new, and didn't know how these people worked yet...so anything was possible. Hopefully they were nice and understanding.

Or threw him out of the airlock.

Both seemed possible.

<TAG Base Personnel>

[Pooja Garcia]

1836
Control Room

Since her return from the Titan captive, she was never sure what she was meant to be doing, how to be helping when a lot of the tech talk was out of her depth. Like a car techs, they confused her. She wasn’t uneducated by any means, it was something she didn’t get a good grasp of in terms of how things worked and what was needed fixing/tweaking or whatever it was called. A simple car failure would have had her running to a service store. Helping out here was beyond her expertise.

So she kept mum and listened, even when she had little say or contribute to the problem as a whole. Looking in from an outsiders’ POV wasn’t appealing either. But being in the same room as Loveridge was even worse. The only thing that made it possible for her to be her was Kim; her only link to sanity in a room full of insane. Bellowing from the Colonel had her jumping and nearly sloshing her tea on her BDU’s and going into full blind panic, which was triggered with something or anything that remaindered her of the cell and the Alien she hated the most. Currently Troy’s bellowing was a slight trigger, feeling Kim’s hand over hers, remaindered her of where she was.

Listening to a new face who called himself Zane, Pooja couldn’t help but feel even more useless, and she was certain she would have been more useful to SD-1 given their mission. She knew the race the team was meeting up with. Another part of their colony on another planet she had helped out with so long ago she had lost count of months that had gone by. She knew the race and would have been helpful there. But it seemed that Loveridge wasn’t ready to let her out his sight, in fear that she maybe the clone, which was something that Doctor Martin was in process of doing. His presences here in Delta was now fully understood by her.

<<Tag Base Personnels>>

[Kimberly "Kim" McKinnon]

1836
Control Room

She wanted to cover her ears and shout for everyone to shut the h3ll up, when Colonel did it for her. She hadn’t been able to think over the noise and chatter and find the faults. Not even after searching the log printouts and what not. They had been at it for more than an hour, raising tension wasn’t helping. Their tech geeks were nearly in clamour when faults were taking longer to find. Gazing over at Pooja who seemed to be ready to into a blind panic at Loveridge’s voice, placed a hand over her sister-in-law’s hand to keep the woman calm.

She had swapped with Martin, so she could be with her. Current roster wouldn’t have had anyone on the base, Mrs Garcia knew. Kim knew there was little to no trust between the Expedition Commander and Garcia’s wife. That hadn’t needed to be voice in order for one to know. She didn’t pretend to know that Troy didn’t have any doubts, she knew they were there. She may not have any emotional intelligence at times; yet she was able to pick up on body language if she paid attention.

Hearing their new face on Delta speak up, “It’s going take a while before we can pinpoint what caused it. From the looks of it, we have over and way over taxed the old girl’s engines. While she may look in her prime, I doubt her engines are anything but that,” she added.

<<Tag Base Personnels>>

[Troy Loveridge]

1836
Control Room

Those seated around the room quickly began to pull together reports and findings and pass them along the Troy. Captain McKinnon was one of the first to respond, explaining that they had somehow overtaxed the engines. Propping his elbow on the arm of his chair, Troy began to massage his temples. Hadn't their jump coordinates and engine calculations been worked out to try and avoid this exact situation? Not that any amount of science would have helped them - things just seemed to go wrong around here even when all the numbers and figures added up.

"Do we have a reason why?" Troy asked, doubting he'd like or understand the answer, but desiring one regardless.

Mister Cobb, one of his newest technicians, was quick to add further explanation. Using his hands to full effect he demonstrated how the timing or 'rhythm' of the ship had been thrown out of balance. Troy was a little concerned that something as simple as 'balance' could cause such huge problems for the city, but anything was possible with the Ancients. They didn't seem to mind leaving a few errors or bugs in their systems, maybe they thought it gave their creations character?

But a loss of balance was better than a huge explosion, and maybe a little easier to fix. Zane had also given them a more accurate timeline than the imaginary one the colonel had created with his fingers, giving them a better baseline to work back from.

"Alright, pull the logs from... seven minutes ago," Troy asked, looking at his watch and making a mental note of the time in question. "Look for anything strange, unusual or... out of rhythm?" He looked to Zane and half shrugged his shoulders, not exactly sure what the young computer specialist had meant, and hoping for a further explanation of what the problem may be.

< Tag Base Personnel >

[Graham Rousseau]

1836
Control Room

Graham was new to the Delta Site and he was honestly quite excited to be here. This was his first time working in another galaxy and his first time ever actually hearing about the Stargate Program. His wife, Haley, had been involved in it for quite sometime now and she was stationed over in Atlantis, while Graham was stationed in the Delta Site. As his combat boots tapped across the floor of the Lost City, his faithful companion, Apollo, stayed right by his side. The two had been partners for quite sometime now and Graham was more than happy to have the company of only the young pup. He did miss his wife but his iswhat came with the military life.

When the engine lost power Graham looked around him, watching the faces of the crew that was walking around before he made his way to the control room, knowing that if he could be of any use, it would be there. As he entered he heard a few people speaking about what was going on and the young man ran his fingers back through his hair before commanding Apollo to it in a low voice. Stay came next and then Graham walked over to one of the computers to have a look at what was going on. Graham, being an expert on security, immediately thought about where they were and he quickly stood back up to his full height of six foot four.

"Colonel, are we safe where we are at the moment or should I prepare some teams in case of an attack?" He didn't know the area, didn't know the galaxy and he had no idea what could happen if they stayed right where they were.

< Tag Base Personnel >

[Robert "Scarecrow" Cromin]

1837
Control room

Captain Cromin who had just walked in to the room didn't exactly have all the details with regards to what was going on but he had pieced enough information to know that the city-ship had just gotten out of its current jump unscheduled. Captain Cromin was on duty in the bridge earlier being a pilot and all he was monitoring the jumps. He leaves for a couple of minutes to go eat and this happens. He had heard that the senior staff had made their way to the control room earlier so he made his way there although he was a little late.

Captain Cromin immediately got on his radio "Sergeant Mulllen this is Captain Cromin I need for you to inform my pilots to prep for guard duty, two birds at a time and take turns every hour until its determined otherwise by me and oh please have the bridge send me the jump logs"

Cromin immediately turned to the Colonel "any orders sir?"

Cromin waited for his response.

<Tag all>

[Kimberly "Kim" McKinnon]

1836
Control Room

She looked at Troy with an expression that spoke volumes of its own. All men around here got the same look every time some dumb and stupid. This was one of those times, but she had to excuse her CO for the question. Some moments she forgot that answers weren’t clear to everyone, “At least not at this stage,” she replied to his question, as she chewed on the pen end, “with a little more snooping we might able to get an answer. That will take a while.” She looked at him thoughtfully.

Heck analysing each and every detail, however tiny, was going take a while. Even physically looked at that old girl’s engines was also up for an option, inside and out. Seeing Cromin coming, perhaps she could do both. It had been a while since she had gotten her hands greased and dirty with oil and fixing up her bird’s engine’s. “Cromin, tell your men to keep a bird for me free,” she told him, “If chance comes up, I might go and see the engine from the outside.” She needed every angle of this situation detailed and covered.

Facing Troy, she gave him a childish hopeful gaze, “Permission for this one Colonel?” she asked him. While she had flew the jumpers and alien vessels for escape, she hadn’t had the pleasure of flying one of their own bird in space. And now she wanted to fly one.

<<Tag, Troy, Cromin, All>>

[Troy Loveridge]

1837
Control Room

The air of general chaos that had consumed the room the moment the engines had died was beginning to settle. Rather than rushing blinding between consoles and trying to talk over each other, people were starting to engage in a more controlled and steady examination of what had gone wrong. It was a sign that people were starting to get their heads around the situation, and that things may not be quite as dire as first expected.

Chief Rousseau, the man around town when it came to base security, enquired as to their current situation. As they didn't know much at the moment it was hard to make a call; was this all down to a simple loose wire, or was it stage one in an enemy incursion? Either way it wouldn't hurt to err on the side of caution. "Increase the patrols around the sensitive areas, the reactor, chair room, docking ports," the colonel suggested. "At least until we know what we're up against."

For added measure he called to the sensor officer to turn up their internal lifesign detectors and keep an eye on their head count. If unexplained life forms started to pop up it'd be a sure sign that this part of an enemy plot.

Captain Cromin reported that a combat air patrol had been launched, and Captain McKinnon added that it might pay to give the engine and exterior of the city-ship a visual look-over. "Make it happen Captain," he replied. "I'm sure Captain Cromin is more than qualified to act as your chauffer for the evening." Troy didn't mean anything by the comment; it was just his way of trying to lighten the mood a little, never hurt to try and keep morale up.

With security sorted and a visual check on its way the colonel again focused his attention to the technical workings of the city-ship. Mister Cobb had worked up a theory about the engines going out of rhythm or sync, and Troy was interested to know if the findings of the other base personnel supported the young man's theory or not.

< Tag Base Personnel >

[Pooja Garcia]

1837
Control Room

As the personnel in the room went on about their own tasks, Pooja felt a little out of loop and awkward for placing any input, so she polished of her tea and left a note for Kim; letting the Captain know that she could be found in Mess or her own quarters. Getting to her feet, she saw the said woman talking to Troy and another personnel she hadn’t knew the name of, but had seen around him around the base.

Leaving them be, she moved out of the door with empty mug in hand and quiet expression to match her mood.

1838
Mess Hall

Weaving through the city, to reach the mess hall, she was glad that it wasn’t full or with Collin’s sitting around waiting to pounce on her at a moment of notice for god knows what. But she wasn’t ready to face or talk to the base shrink. In fact she didn’t want to interact with the other woman. Giving her mug a refill, Pooja picked up a plate of assorted sandwiches and jello. Blue, she mused seemed to be the preferred colour for the dessert. Setting everything on the tray, she moved to find a seat next to the large glass window. She was going to be eating while watching the stars, while waiting for her husband to return was an interesting way to pass the time.

Relaxing a little since leaving the control room, Pooja took a bite of the first piece of her sandwich.

<<Tag All>>

((Not really sure how to inject her into helping, so she’s just killing time…haha!!

Also people, please watch the time stamps, due to location difference for Pooja's location to others. )

[Robert "Scarecrow" Cromin]

1838
Control Room

Colonel Loveridge seemed to be getting his bearings and so was everyone else. Everyone seemed to be following their training coming up with possible solutions to better manage the situation and giving the colonel options to proceed with handling the crisis. The Colonel had ordered Cromin to take Captain McKinnon on a good old space ride to better examine the ship from the outside for any possible damage. "I'm sure Captain Cromin is more than qualified to act as your chauffer for the evening." Captain Cromin responded saying "that i most certainly am sir, Kim see you in the hangar inn 5 mics, i need to run through something really quickly."

At the time a sergeant handed Captain Cromin the Jump logs he had requested. Whatever happened had to have happened in the last few minutes because he had been at the bridge until about 5 minutes ago and everything seemed to be functioning perfectly before then. Cromin looked at the logs and eveything seemed fine except for the small anomally which seemed to be in the margin of error but in an area where it wasn't supposed to be in the first place. Captain Cromin handed the file over to the Colonel, he pointed to the small anomally on the side and said "Colonel that right there looks normally but its positioning is rather wierd, it is out of place. I have no idea what it means sir maybe one of these tech heads here will be able to explain" As he finished he saluted the Colonel and proceeded to head out to the hangar bay to prep himself for flight.

As he walked towards the hangar, he contacted the flight comm NCO "Sergeant Mullen, this is captain Cromin, prep the shuttle and two 302s for escort duty, I will be taking the shuttle shortly" The sergeant responded saying "Copy that sir, be ready in 5 minutes."

The Captain signed off and proceeded to make his way to the shuttle.

<Tag all>

[Troy Loveridge]

1838
Control Room

Captain Cromin and Captain McKinnon departed to undertake a visual inspection of the city-ship from the view afforded by one of the expedition's X-305 shuttles. While there had been nothing to suggest that damage may be present or even visible it never hurt to play it safe. Akrotiri had gotten pretty beat up when it had launched from the Delta Site, broke through a Titan blockade and jumped into hyperspace. There engine problems could be residual battle damage or a fault masked by blinded or malfunctioning sensors.

The scientists and engineers were still working away at their terminals, studying the consoles in front of them intently and trying to diagnose the situation. Having no real grasp of the inner-workings of the city-ship, the colonel was inclined to let them go about their business in peace. If anything came up they'd be sure to pass it along. Hopefully the visual examination Robert and Kim were undertaking would reveal more leads.

The life sign detector sweep that Troy had orders returned a number of unknown hits down by the commissary. The airman in charge of the sensor called Troy over and pointed out a number of unauthorised personnel a few corridors down from the commissary, however they were having trouble getting a lock on them. The red dots kept disappearing from the screen, and every time the airmen slightly adjusted the wavelength of the scan he'd pick them again for a second before they disappeared again. This cat and mouse game of detecting and disappearance carried on for a few moments until he was unable to detect them.

Troy asked about the green marker in the commissary, and was informed that it belonged to Doctor Garcia. Activating his radio, the colonel called for a security team to meet him in the commissary. "Chief Rousseau, Doctor Garcia, meet me in corridor 7B, just down from the commissary." He stopped short of revealing the security threat; if these unknown life signs were able to get around their sensors they may be able to crack their radios. Leaving Zane in charge of the control room, Troy made his way to the nearest transported and down to corridor 7B.

< Tag Base Personnel >

OOC: Sorry, didn’t have much to go on

[Kimberly "Kim" McKinnon]

1837
Control Room

Glad, relief slammed into one another when Troy allowed her to go ahead with her idea. It wasn’t a crazy one, but more practical in level. While she had learnt not to do crazy, didn’t mean she wasn’t itching to think and play out an idea. One didn’t do crazy around Garcia unless one wanted to clean equipment with their tooth brush, only god knew what Loveridge would throw on the table if used one her ‘crazy’ ideas. Her bet was on something much worse than cleaning and night duties.

“Yes, sir,” she replied in a sort of automatic habit, then smirked his other comment, and resisted to roll her eyes, “Nice to know that my flying abilities are valued,” she added in the same way, it didn’t mean anything nor had any reason behind it.

Facing Cromin, “I’ll be there,” Kim told him and moved to the desk to check on Pooja, only to find the woman nowhere within the room, reading the note left behind, she sighed, “Okay. Have fun being bored.” She muttered to herself as she made her way out of the room and towards the hanger bay.

1838 - 1840
Hanger Bay

Arriving she listened to the busy and the buzz around the place and grinned foolishly. This was the first time she was flying since her fateful crash years ago. Frist time she was willing flying a plane without fear or doubts. But some small amount of each was still there and she knew it wasn’t going to fade away, but sit there as a scar of her past and experience. The bird alone brought back memories.

There was one person to thank for all this. If it hadn’t been for Jerry’s belief and trust, she wouldn’t be here; if it wasn’t for his support, she would have either quit Delta after the Alpha Site went history or at least been divorced and a single mother looking after a daughter, or worse in a padded room with a white jacket. Shaking her thoughts she took the gear from the hook it was placed on and got ready.

With a helmet on her hips, Mckinnon moved towards the birds and was lead to the one that was kept free for Robert and her. Looking over the bird, she gave it visual inspection, “Your gal?” she asked Cromin as he came closer, “she got a name?”

<<Tag Cromin>>

[Pooja Garcia]

1838 - 1840
Mess Hall

However silent her radio was, it still made her jump when it came to life with another’s voice floating out of it. It was going to be while before she got used to expecting radio call from anyone. She didn’t like it when an unexpected voice came over at an unexpected time. It really made her freak out and fear factor climbed up. Easing her trembles, she frowned at Troy’s voice, hadn’t the man gotten the message that she wasn’t interesting helping him of all people. Or was it the fact that he wanted to keep her in his radar.

In the past few months she was never sure what Troy Loveridge was up to as far she and her possibility being a clone were concerned. If he had no trust in her, so it made her perplexed as to why he kept her in the loop of this trouble. She had nothing to add or have any idea on how to help out. Keeping out of his way was the only logical solution to everything as far as she was concerned. It was easier that way.

Sighing she looked at her barely touch meal, and made a face, so much for enjoying the whole meal with the stars and the nebulas or the planets twinkling in the distance. Better yet, so much for peace and quiet. Getting to her feet, she emptied her mug in a go, “Save my sandwiches for me,” she called out to Williams as she exited the mess and moved down the hall, as two more SF’s joined her.

Inhaling, she noticed another group and heard some thudding down the hall and peeped in the direction of the sound travelled from. Just what the h3ll was going around here? If they were dealing with alien creepy crawlies, Loveridge and that Chief guy were on their own.

“Will someone tell me what the heck is going on here?” she faced the two SF’s who had been with her since her departure from the mess.

<<Tag Troy, Graham and All>>

[Robert "Scarecrow" Cromin]

1840
Hanger Bay

Captain Cromin was fully prepped, he had his flight suit on, side arm holstered but he decided against carrying a rifle or any other weapon for that matter. He figured he wouldn't need afterall, all they were doing was flying around the city to inspect it from the outside. If they ever did need extra weapons the X-305 had a lite armory. A sergeant walked towards Cromin with a tablet and an electronic pen in his hand so that Cromin could get busy signing off on the documents that authorized all flights from the city and finish all his pre flight checks. It was while he was in the middle of all of this that he heard Captain Mckinnon say “Your gal?” she asked Cromin as she came closer, “she got a name?”

Captain Cromin turned around smiling and said "Kimberly . . . that's her name in honor of you mi lady" Cromin laughed a little and said "I rarely fly these shuttles, i have one of the other pilots do it, except i have to be in it, but for you it will be my pleasure flying you around. I usually mostly fly the X-302 but like i said, it is my pleasure to fly you today" And with that Cromin waived her in to the shuttle and called for his escort 302's to take off and secure the immediate AO of space before the shuttle took off.

<Tag Kim>