Trebal looked at me with a searching gaze. I'd say I felt like prey under a falcon diving from the sky, but...
"We need to do this," she said.
"You know," I forced a bit of a smile, looking around the empty compartment, "I'm flattered that you brought me somewhere there are no prying eyes..."
"Why are you hesitating?" she asked. "Didn't I promise you everything would be fine?"
"No," I reminded her. "You said, 'You'll like it!' And it seems we have different ideas about what constitutes pleasure..."
"You have developed Lantean genetics," she said. "You said so yourself. So this will be simple. You don't need to do anything — I'll do it all myself. We both need this... It'll help us unwind, release the pent-up stress... Switch our focus from our problems to something... more... interesting for both of us..."
"I'd love to hear that under different circumstances," I muttered. Why is it that in the company of a beautiful woman, we men sometimes lose our heads?
"Under what circumstances?" she looked at me, puzzled.
"You know..." I caught myself. What an idiot! What are you thinking? She just lost... someone close, someone she clearly didn't just serve alongside. If she allowed herself that kind of familiarity, then she was certainly closer to the deceased Aurora commander than the other three hundred nineteen crew members. "I'm not feeling too well... And anyway, I think we'd be useful fixing a couple of burned-out relays, or replacing some wiring... I was pretty good at it, actually, and..."
Trebal stepped almost right up to me.
She's half a head shorter, so she looks up at me... A rather... piquant gaze. I know what she wants, but I just... don't feel like it.
"Alright," she said in a sultry voice, placing her right hand on my chest. "Let me play on your guilt then... Let's start with the last point."
"Let's not?"
We're in a part of the ship where, even if she slices me up with a pipe, no one will hear my screams.
"No, we're doing this," she said. Why does her 'intimate whisper' sound more like a snake's hiss? "So... You invaded my personal space..."
"I'm not to blame for falling face-first into your... neckline," I found my words. "You started the maneuver, I wasn't ready..."
"So you don't deny your guilt," she concluded, tracing a finger on my chest. "And before that, you bashed my head against the bulkhead. You know, it still hurts. A lot."
"I apologized."
"I don't really remember that."
"You were unconscious."
"Exactly," she smiled. "And you also left me unconscious on a ship where a Wraith hadn't even been locked in a cage yet."
"I don't think he was interested in your chest," I said. "Especially since, during the reverse feeding, he already... Invaded your personal space... On my orders, of course..."
Trebal looked me straight in the eyes.
"Give you a chance, and you'd drown yourself, wouldn't you?" she clarified. "No pressure needed... I was already figuring out how to make you, was thinking of threats... And then I realized — you're just a man."
"That sounded incredibly insulting," I admitted. "You're not a feminist, are you?"
The girl thought for a moment...
"I'm not sure I understood the term correctly, but I don't think so... So, are we doing this?"
"How about some other time?" I suggested.
"No, right now," she replied. Her fingers pressed their tips into my sternum, and then her hand resembled the head of a king cobra...
And then I felt pain in my chest, the sensation of flying, and... pain in my back and the back of my head.
"Damn it!" I cursed, purely instinctively placing my hands on the designated surfaces. My fingers touched silicone cushions filled with something like jelly.
And a white-blue light began to glow around my body. On the wall in front of me, a panel slid aside, revealing a control screen shaped like a slightly modified rhombus. Color indicators flashed, markings appeared in the Ancient language...
"That hurt, by the way," I said, coughing.
"You shouldn't have tested my patience," she said dryly, approaching the monitor and a small keyboard that had slid out of the wall. "Then I wouldn't have had to use force."
"That's no way to build a relationship, you know," I warned. "You can't achieve that much through intimidation and violence..."
"Through flirtation and hand-to-hand skills, you can get much more out of a man than through simple requests," she answered calmly, studying the readings on the monitor.
And there wasn't even a hint left of what had been between us just a minute ago. If there was any chemistry between us, it was clearly inorganic, artificial, false...
"And what was all this for?" I asked, still sitting in the Ancient control chair.
"I need the output data," Trebal said. "You can only get them when someone is in the chair."
"So sit in it yourself! It works based on the Ancient gene... You have it..."
"Yes, but not as strong as the one in a Lantean's body," the girl said. "The stronger the gene, the closer it is to the Lantean version, the more systems and functions the chair unlocks."
"Including...?" I inquired meaningfully, looking at the monitor readings as Trebal stepped aside.
The Ancient Control Chair.
Trebal tucked the console back into the wall, then came around behind me. From the sound, she removed some kind of panel...
"What do you know about this device?" she asked me.
"I know it consumes an enormous amount of energy," I recalled. "Also, it's installed at outposts and in Atlantis to control homing projectiles."
"Is that the extent of your knowledge, as an alien from another universe?" Trebal inquired.
"The commander told you about that too?" I asked, on alert.
"We kept no secrets from each other," she replied. A melodic sound rang out, typically accompanying the extraction of main crystals in Ancient systems. The white-blue glow of the chair disappeared. "And he told me who you are and what you're made of."
"And... what am I made of?" I asked curiously.
"A blank slate that got an upgraded genetic shell," Trebal said. The crystal clicked back into place and everything returned to how it was. "No knowledge, no skills, no aptitude for higher sciences. Not even for our level..."
Ten years ago, when I was younger, I would have just stood up and walked away, refusing to tolerate insults on my own ship. But Trebal clearly possessed some interesting information. And she understood Ancient technology. At least — the control chair.
"Tell me, were you born a bitch, or is it acquired?" I inquired, watching as the readings on the monitor changed.
Now a map of a whole section of space unfolded before my eyes. On one side was a marker for our ship, on the other — the enemy hive ship. And further away — another marker. One that was much more massive than a regular hive ship.
I don't like the look of this...
"It makes life easier," she replied. "I'm done."
"Great. Wipe down the equipment."
The girl walked around the control chair, ignoring my words, and came back to the monitor.
"So, we have more data," she said. "The chair, as always, does its job perfectly."
"I'd still like to know what you do," I admitted. "Because right now I feel somewhat redundant..."
"The control chair functions by creating a neural interface between the subject-operator's mind and the corresponding device, allowing the user to control any technology it's connected to by thought alone," the girl recited. "The chair contains equipment that interprets the user's mental commands and executes them, then transmits information back to the user for confirmation. A closed-loop mental control system. You flew... what did you call them?"
"Jumpers," I explained.
"Jumpers," the girl repeated. "An interesting name... Why that?"
"Because the event horizon of an active stargate looks like a puddle of water," I explained. "And the ship 'jumps' into that puddle..."
Trebal thought for a couple of seconds.
"A primitive analogy, but accurate enough," she concluded. "Though I didn't expect anything different from representatives of a primitive race. Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Tell me, have you ever considered that calling people who haven't developed to your level, which by the way was provided by the Ancients, 'primitive' is somewhat offensive?" I inquired.
"It's a scientific term," she said. "You are primitive in relation to us. Even to the Ancients' Minor races."
"I wonder, did the Ancients call your race primitive too?" I asked. Seriously, where does this snobbery come from anyway?! Yes, she's quite the bitch, changing masks depending on the situation, but there has to be a limit!
"I was born long after we crossed the threshold of primitiveness," she replied calmly. "We became a Minor race within the Ancients' confederation."
"But compared to them, you were primitive, weren't you?" I pressed.
"Yes," she said imperturbably. "But less primitive than, say, your friends from Athos. Or your base race."
"What makes you so sure?"
"The fact that I know how to work with Ancient technology," Trebal countered. "And you couldn't even configure the ship's systems on your own. If not for my trained body, you would have died under the Wraith bombardment. Actually, I think by now you'd be crawling at the queen's feet, spilling every secret she wanted to know."
A ruthless, completely tactless bitch. I'm starting to regret saving her. Maybe I should knock her out again and hit her head on the other side, harder? Would that help, or just make everything worse?
"Let's continue our talk about the control chair?" I suggested. "For example, I'm curious why this particular method was chosen for controlling, say, homing projectiles?"
"This control method prevents unauthorized access to the system by other means, serving as a security measure that prevents anyone who cannot use the chair from easily operating the system without it," she explained. "The control chairs are specifically genetically keyed to a particular biological species to prevent unauthorized access. In our case — to the Ancients. Their descendants and their Minor races."
"Why not just use good encryption?" I asked. "Passwords, retinal scans, biometrics, all that?"
"The chair does use all that," Trebal replied, puzzled. Then, as if catching herself, she answered, "Passwords can be learned, the biometric subject can be coerced, forced, their mind subdued. But the chair... The chair cannot be fooled. It scans whoever tries to operate it, reacts to changes in the operator's sweat and oil secretions, analyzes brain frequencies, their emissions, internal organ rhythms... If the operator is affected by biological, chemical, mental, or other radiation or substances, if their will is broken or they are otherwise subjugated — the chair won't work."
"So it's not just about the gene," I understood. "The person themselves is like a master key."
"An elegant solution, isn't it?" Trebal smiled. "Now I can trust you."
"And before?" I clarified.
"Before this, how should I have regarded a man who arrives from another universe with unknown intentions, claims that one of the most heroic Lanteans and Ascended Beings broke every conceivable rule and put Atlantis at your disposal?" she asked. "You and your people don't possess the Ancients' knowledge, yet you restored the ship. You have a Wraith with you who is older than he seems."
"What makes you say that?"
"By the end of the war, a stratification among the Wraiths by hive was observed," Trebal said. "They began to break into collectives after the destruction of their supreme commander — the Death Queen. A fashion emerged among them: tattooing themselves with symbols of their hive. This one has nothing like that. He's either too young or too old. He doesn't look young. From this I conclude he's one of those we fought ten thousand years ago. I'm curious, how did you manage to find and capture him? And why isn't he in one of the hives? Which queen does he serve?"
The girl looked at me with interest, waiting for an answer.
"Let's continue our lecture about the chair," I suggested.
Realizing there would be no answer to her questions, Trebel's expression didn't change. I'd bet she'll try to pry this information out of me later. With her cunning tricks...
"As I said, the chair interacts with the brain," Trebal said. "It's wireless communication, and it's impossible to interfere with. The chair is just the tip of the entire technology involved in the whole process," the girl walked over to the monitor and pressed a few icons on it.
The image changed again.
The Ancient Control Chair.
"Although they all look similar externally, the structure and peripheral systems of the chairs on Atlantis or on ships are different," she explained. "Before you is a chair from Atlantis. This is the base version for city-ships, outposts, and so on. The elements you see inside form the primary system for controlling the city or outpost, and are also connected to all parts of the settlement. There's no point in using them on a ship; they simply take up too much space and are redundant for a military starship. Only the chair itself and its platform are used," she pointed to the platform the chair stood on, "and the equipment is connected to the ship's systems."
"It's all about saving space?" I clarified.
"And energy," the girl added. "By default, the chair requires a ZPM to function. But that power source isn't easy to produce. And since a certain point in the war, just before ships like this were built, it became completely impossible."
"Why?"
"The Lanteans never explained the reasons," Trebal said. "And Minor races don't ask questions."
"Were there no rumors?"
"Are they important?"
"Sometimes there's a grain of truth in rumors," I noted.
"In that case, you'd better talk to someone else," Trebal said. "I didn't concern myself with collecting rumors."
"Alright, let's say. But there's no ZPM on the Hippaforalkus. Yet the chair works," I observed.
"Because on this ship and subsequent ones, super-reactors began to be installed as the main shipboard power plants," Trebal explained. "When they're running, they produce enough energy to power the chair. But it significantly depletes the ship's power resources. So ships going into battle were usually equipped with ZPMs. On this ship, it seems it was taken during the evacuation. Or maybe it never had one. That could happen if there were none left by the end of the war."
"Alright," I nodded, getting up from the chair. No point in burning energy for nothing. "So ships got a simplified version, without all these," I pointed at the monitor, "additional installations?"
"I didn't explain it quite correctly," Trebal frowned. "The platform with the chair and the systems shown on the diagram are not a single unit. The platform with the chair can be detached and moved. That's how it was done on ships — they simply didn't build the 'lower' part, because it uses very rare resources and systems that are difficult to produce."
And, where a city or outpost has its own tracking, targeting, and other systems built into the chair, on more or less modern ships they are effectively absent as separate technologies. The chairs on ships are, essentially, the gunner and shooter's station.
And now Trebal has reconfigured it, connecting it to all the ship's systems. So, besides the chair on the bridge, the ship could be controlled from here too?
"Correct," Trebal said. "We ran simulations of similar upgrades on the Aurora. But in virtuality, we couldn't change the crystal configuration and gain access to the main functions without a Lantean in the chair in reality..."
"Weren't you afraid it would blow up?"
"No," the girl answered confidently. "At worst, some circuits would burn out. But we have spares — Ihaar pulled a full set from the Aurora. The main crystals, by the way, will fit Atlantis — the Aurora had the same type of chair as the city. The spares are for the Hippaforalkus's chair."
Alright... I'll accept that. But I'll make a mental note — it's time to sort out the chain of command. Can't let the Ancients do whatever they want. It seems Trebal is simply testing my limits, looking for boundaries.
Fine, this game can be played two can play.
Now many things are becoming clear.
For example, the existence of the control station in Atlantis. Why have terminals if the city can be run from the chair? Exactly right — energy conservation. Why waste it on routine procedures?
So, despite having the base model (not the stripped-down version) of the chair, the city also has a set of all the main sensors and programs that can be operated from the consoles. I think somewhere out there, there's also a system for firing from a terminal rather than the chair — there was something like that in the series. The replicators that captured Atlantis shot at the heroes then. And they didn't have the Ancient gene because they had no flesh.
"It's not actually the chair itself that uses a ton of energy, is it?" I voiced my guess.
"Why do you think that?" the Ancient frowned.
"Our reactors aren't in the best shape," I reminded her. "Yet starting the chair had no effect on the ship's power supply. The lights didn't even flicker. I don't think these reactors produce enough power to replace a ZPM — otherwise they'd have been installed in the city in unlimited quantities. And I didn't notice any there."
"You're right," Trebal replied, with a hint of respect and surprise. "That immense energy was needed to power the entire complex of mechanisms connected to the base version of the chair."
Hmm... the little pot is cooking the right porridge, that's good.
"Are these the consoles?" I asked, pointing at the silicone gel panels located at the ends of the chair's armrests.
"Manual interface," Trebal explained. "It's used for those whose genetics aren't good enough. But it also reduces the mental load when working with the chair. This is important for long-duration operation. For example, piloting or sustained combat — it's better to give a command by pressing a button than to burden the mind. From experience, I can say that even the Lanteans weren't above this approach — after an hour or so of contact with the chair, a person could be sent to the infirmary for recovery. Mental exhaustion..."
So much for advanced technology — it sucks the brains and thoughts right out of you.
"The chair can now connect me directly to the ship's database, right?" I asked.
"What do you need that information for?" Trebal asked suspiciously.
"Let's say I want to upload the necessary information from the database directly into my brain... Is that possible? The Ancients have that technology."
"Yes, I've heard of it. Knowledge was uploaded using such installations, and the reverse interaction circuit with the brain is analogous to the one in the chair. They are identical or related technologies. But the Repositories of Knowledge are barbarism! They were created to educate the Minor races and haven't been used since the flight from the Milky Way. At least, that's what the commander said..."
Interesting. So those things have a very practical purpose. Not just a trail of crumbs for descendants.
"So uploading information directly from the database into the brain through the chair is possible after all?"
"With your level of genetics and training, you don't need such dangerous methods," Trevel warned.
"Yes or no?"
"I won't say until you answer my question."
But you've already said everything I wanted to know.
I wasn't planning on saying anything anyway. After all, switching gender and social roles isn't my style. And since she's acting like the 'man' here... Would a punch to the jaw count as an answer?
I was spared from having to respond in the strict caveman representation of dialogue by Ihaar's voice.
"Mikhail, Trebal, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear," the girl said into her brooch-transmitter, not taking her eyes off me.
"We've surveyed the external damage and started repairs."
"How bad is it?" she asked.
"The main power bus has melted, and we don't have enough spare parts to restore it," Ihaar explained. "The secondary circuit isn't in great shape either after your trick with the near-lightspeed transition, but there's a decent chance of partially restoring it, partially bypassing the damaged sections by cannibalizing other systems. Some areas of the ship will be cold, some will lose gravity, and some doors are best left unopened, as we'll be cutting away part of the hull to extract the needed elements..."
"Will it fly?" I asked.
"Oh," Ihaar said, sounding perplexed. "I didn't know you were nearby... There's a decent chance."
"How decent?"
"Fifty percent that we can accelerate on sublights and open a window into hyperspace, fifty percent that the reactors will just burn everything out to the ori and the hull will start breaking apart from the stress," the chief engineer reported.
"I hope that was the bad news?" I clarified.
"Actually, the good news," the guy sighed. "The bad news is that the Wraith clearly know the ship's schematics — one of their hits damaged the homing missile launcher. So if we do decide to fight... well, we'll have to punch holes in our own hull. The problem is, the main control and power buses run very close to there... One meter off, and we lose ship control."
"But missiles are very precise weapons, aren't they?" I asked Trebal.
"A five-to-six meter margin of error is perfectly normal, even for an experienced chair operator," she said. "That's why they're launched in swarms — to guarantee target destruction."
"Let me guess — the missiles that are fired but don't hit the target won't return to their cells?" I asked.
"If you're suicidal, go ahead and try," the senior officer of the Aurora shuddered. "But not with my people on board."
So, we can't win a fight. We simply have no weapons — impulse cannons won't protect us from the firepower of a Hive Ship. And certainly not from a second one, which is even bigger.
Looks like the secret of Atlantis's restoration won't remain one for long.
"Are you still there?" Ihaar's voice rang out. "If I interrupted something important..."
"I've connected the chair to the long-range sensors," Trebal replied into the brooch. "They show that the approaching ship resembles a hive, upgraded with ZPM technology."
"Oh, may the Ori rot in the vacuum!" Ihaar cursed. "You think they have a ZPM?"
"Nothing serious," I interjected. "Keep chatting as if I weren't here. Don't forget to write about this in your diary, gossip-girl Trebal."
The girl looked at me without the slightest hint of understanding.
Yeah... I need to get back to Earth just to find someone who gets my jokes. Though maybe I shouldn't.
"The Wraith's key problem is a lack of energy."
"I'm aware of that."
"Let me finish! During the war, they managed to capture several of our ships. And the ZPMs on them. After that, their numbers somehow increased by thousands of times. They got ships that could be called super-hives — I think that's what you call overwhelming superiority of one subject over another in your language. Basically, such a ship dominates the others. It has more weapons, more 'arrows,' a larger crew, and it flies without short stops to repair the hull from radiation. Oh, and," Trebal smiled mockingly, "it also has super-armor that even the full arsenal of a battleship like the Hippaforalkus can't penetrate."
"Why?" I clarified. "Don't projectiles pierce any barrier?"
"It's a question of quantity," Trebal said. "The Aurora and the next generation, which includes the Hippaforalkus, each have a thousand projectiles. When subsequent generations were built, directly for war, they had three thousand projectiles. That was more than enough to destroy a ship of this type, developed to its maximum."
"And how many projectiles does Atlantis have?" I asked.
"I don't know if they were replenished, since the factory was destroyed," Trebal said. "When we broke through, the Aurora was given a set of projectiles from the city. And it was practically empty there."
"I meant, how many projectiles should be in the city's arsenal?" I had to clarify.
"I never bothered to check the size of the arsenal on Atlantis or other city-ships."
Great... So she knows about other such cities. Excellent! I just need to get out of this mess, and life will get better.
"Do we have shields, Ihaar?" I asked.
"The emitters are burned out or cracked," he announced. "Maybe five percent, maybe ten I can give you, but no more."
So our options are rapidly shrinking.
Our eyes met, Trebal's and mine.
"Thinking the same thing I am?" she asked.
"If our thoughts are similar, then I don't know whether to be happy for you or sorry, because I'm primitive," I reminded her.
The girl silently swallowed the barb.
"We can't survive a fight."
"Yeah, it's strictly contraindicated for us," I noted. "We need to leave. And preferably in a way that the Wraith don't detect or track us."
Contacting Atlantis and asking Chaya to help us, or to raise the city to the surface, fly over, and pick us up, would be a good idea. If not for the very limited time we have left before the second ship arrives. And the fact that there are no projectiles in the city.
"If the ship doesn't have a Wraith transmitter, they won't find us," Trebal stated confidently. "They definitely can't track us in hyperspace."
"So, it's time to think about escape," I concluded.
"Get to work repairing the engines," Trebal ordered into the brooch-transmitter. "Sublight, hyperdrive..."
"And the maneuvering thrusters?" Ihaar asked. "We've already started repairing the others."
Logical, you wouldn't even need a crew here — without sublight, we wouldn't be able to accelerate for a hyperspace window. And without a hyperdrive, we wouldn't leave this part of space.
"The maneuvering thrusters were damaged too?" Trebal clarified.
"Did you think you could run ten times the maximum designed power through them and they'd come out like new?" Ihaar exclaimed. "They're fried! They managed the deceleration after acceleration, but even then, we only killed ninety-two percent of the velocity..."
"Work with what you have," I ordered, seeing that the girl was still holding down the brooch-transmitter.
We don't have any other options anyway.
"Understood, continuing restoration," Ihaar said, disconnecting.
"This is bad," Trebal said, fiddling with the transmitter on her uniform. "Inoperative maneuvering thrusters are a big problem. Fatal, I'd say."
"You're telling me," I agreed. "Because without them, we..."
"Maneuvering thrusters provide course deviation when moving on sublight engines," Trebal replied (surprisingly!). "They're needed for atmospheric entry. But most importantly, they're used to cancel the momentum after exiting a hyperspace window."
"And if they're burned out..."
"Then we'll plow at full speed into whatever cosmic object is in front of us, if there is one at the end of the journey," Trebal added grimly. "If we exit a hyperjump in open space, the ship will just continue moving by inertia."
"Could we flip the ship with the sublight engines forward, use them to kill the momentum, and then drift?" I asked.
"Not without maneuvering thrusters," Trebal said. "Without them, we fly in a straight line in real space..."
"And in hyperspace?" I asked, chasing a dangerous idea. "We don't steer with them there, do we?"
"No," Trebal frowned. "It seems you have an idea?"
"A couple," I admitted. "But we'll need a damn good pilot. You don't happen to know one, do you?"
The girl gave me a penetrating stare.
"Sarcasm?" she clarified, just in case.
"Of course not!" I waved my hand. "How could we, primitive species..."
"Sarcasm," the girl stated. "Fine, let's say I can pilot the ship at the required level. But I'd like to know for what specific purpose..."
"Well, here's where you're going to hear something you won't like," I said, getting up from the chair.