"Who are you and what are you doing here?" I asked the stranger.
She just swept a cold-blooded gaze over me, continuing to stare somewhere through us.
"She doesn't seem inclined to talk," Teyla said. "So what do we do?"
"Kill her," Ihaar said decisively. "I'll figure out what she is later."
"After a decision like that, I'm not even surprised that the Ancients are actually radically different from what the legends say," Alvar grumbled. "She's not showing any aggression!"
The events of the TV series Stargate Atlantis chronologically began in the Stargate universe in the eighth year of humanity's galactic exploration program. If memory serves, the full "serial" start of events began in 1997.
And in 2004, humanity reached the Pegasus galaxy.
Logically, since about eight months had passed since the Earth expedition was supposed to have reached Atlantis, it couldn't be later than 2005 in that universe. Still a long way from my present day, of course...
But for me, the next twenty years had still happened. Yes, 2025 was fatal for me and the start of a new life. Not everyone gets that on their thirty-sixth year of life, but...
Looking at the naked young woman, shrouded in a web of wires and regarding us with complete indifference, for a moment it seemed like 2008 flashed before my eyes and the pilot episode of the TV series "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles". Also known as "The Sarah Connor Chronicles".
By the logic of the narrative, the series ignored the absurd third part of the film universe, replacing it with its own story. And according to the plot, another Terminator is sent to a young, content John Connor. In the future, everyone just knows how the young savior of humanity exhausts himself saving people, never caring about his personal life.
So a new Terminator-nanny, designated "Cameron" from the T-900 model line, arrived in a female shell. With the appearance of actress Summer Glau. And I have to say, for an eighteen-year-old guy back then, that lady, and the whole series as a whole, had a significant impact.
But first and foremost, she came to mind now as the only female "wrapped" Terminator who was unequivocally good. At least in the first season.
And it was that image — a young, beautiful, and lethally dangerous girl whose eyes glowed with blue light — that came to mind the moment I saw our guest.
True, our "guest" looked more like a machine than the Terminators from that universe. And she practically radiated soullessness from a mile away.
"Is she just going to stand there?" Ihaar asked, shuddering at the "Terminator's" presence.
"You could offer her a seat," Alvar joked.
"Why didn't you warn us earlier?" I asked Jensen.
"I watched her for a couple of minutes while she watched you," Alvar explained. "If she's a machine, she seems to be broken. She just came here and stood. Listened, watched us, but showed no aggression."
Summer Glau as the Terminator Cameron.
"And if she had attacked?" Ihaar asked, a hint of panic in his voice. "If she's a machine, she's faster than all of us! And deadlier!"
"She has no weapons," Teyla noted.
"If she's a machine, or a cyborg like they produced here, she probably doesn't need weapons," I said, studying the "guest." "Best case, every part of her body is a weapon. Worst case, she'll kill one of us to take it."
"Or she won't attack," Alvar continued, still aiming at the... woman. "If she wanted to kill, she would have already."
"If she wanted to talk, she would have already talked!" Ihaar retorted. "Do you really think anything in this place doesn't want to kill us?"
"And do you really think opening fire first on foreign territory without understanding what's going on is a good idea?" I asked. "No, we need to figure out who she is, what she is, and what's happening here."
"Well, let's do an interview then," Ihaar suggested. "Oh, right, I forgot! She won't even answer simple questions!"
"I wouldn't want people talking in my presence as if I weren't here," Teyla admitted, not taking her eyes off the "guest." "Ihaar, couldn't you connect to the computer and find out who she is?"
"And how exactly? I only copied what that insane pseudo-intelligence didn't manage to erase!"
"You said the base has cryo-chambers," I recalled. "Could she be one of the locals? Say, a scientist who went into their version of stasis to wake up in a better time?"
"Well, she missed the date then," Ihaar was clearly nervous. "I didn't see any mention of anyone being frozen here in the current time."
"She didn't just stand here for several thousand years right behind that wall," I pointed out the obvious logical flaw. "She's too well-preserved for a race that's technologically inferior to the Ancients."
"She doesn't look pristine either," Ihaar objected. "Look at her face, body, skin. She's clearly lost subcutaneous fat, and her skeleton is protruding. So their technology is imperfect..."
"Enough already!" I said sharply, stepping forward past Teyla and Ihaar. My personal shield activated, covering me with greenish energy. "We're in a situation where any move could lead to a potential bloodbath!"
"She's blocking the exit," Alvar agreed, catching on to why I'd stepped forward. The Ermen quickly moved back. Now, if anything started here, I'd take the first hit. Not that I wanted to suffer, but at the same time, I had the best chance of not dying from a cyborg's first blow.
And the fact that the lady before us was a direct symbiosis of flesh and technology became clear the moment I got close to her.
There were hematomas on her skin where reinforced tubes of various diameters pierced her body. In some places, metal elements were visible protruding from under the skin.
Neck, torso, limbs — tubes were everywhere. I didn't know why you'd bring the circulation system for some kind of fluid to the surface of the body, but I couldn't spot any reservoirs to understand what exactly was passing through this network of thin pipes.
And yes, Ihaar was right — the lady looked more like a fan of anorexic leisure than a super-soldier. Or, say, the Arnie from Terminator. Yes, she had six-pack abs with tubes running around them. But the muscles on her arms and legs were clearly deficient. You could say "skin and bones."..
My eyes, accustomed to the semi-darkness, let me see her more clearly. The lady had hair braided into hundreds of thin dreadlock braids gathered at the back of her head. Her skin on her body was almost sagging in places, indicating a deficiency of subcutaneous fat and tissue.
But despite that, the unknown woman stood perfectly straight, not swaying. As if her discomfort didn't bother her at all.
"And how long are we going to stand here?" Ihaar asked in a whisper for some reason.
"As long as it takes to avoid making even more stupid mistakes," Alvar hushed him.
"We actually have a communication session coming up soon," the Ancient reminded us. "If we don't contact Atlantis, a squad will come for us."
The cyborg's head turned, and now the unknown woman was looking directly at Ihaar.
"What does she want?" the latter asked.
"It seems you said something that caught her attention," I suggested, stepping slightly to the side. Was I imagining it, or was there some kind of inscription on the cyborg's temple? No, I wasn't imagining it. There was something there, like a tattoo. The letter "X," but the "tails" were spread wide apart.
"I don't like catching her attention," Ihaar admitted. "I generally don't like things I'm not familiar with!"
"We need to decide something," Teyla said. "We can't stand here forever."
"Agreed," Alvar said. "I don't think she'll get bored."
"I could try to knock her out with my stun baton," Alvar suggested.
Good idea. But since she's partly mechanical, would that kill her? And it's not even about whether I feel sorry for her or not. It's just... By the law of the genre, things like this usually have a self-destruct system in case of capture or mission failure.
So... There's only one question — will we be able to get out of here while she's exploding?
"Ihaar, you need to scan her," I ordered.
"Why?" he was surprised.
"I want to know if there's a bomb or a reactor inside her that will go critical if we knock her out with energy weapons," I explained.
The cyborg turned her head toward me.
Her glowing eyes literally made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Like I was being examined under a microscope... It's a disgusting feeling, being a lab rat.
"Yes, right away," the Ancient said, putting away his weapon and grabbing his scanner. "I need to find the right frequency to scan her..."
"That won't be necessary."
The female voice that sounded was as emotionless as the unknown woman's gaze itself.
And, I'll be honest, I almost pulled the trigger when she opened her mouth.
"Holy heavens," Alvar let out a heavy breath. "She speaks... I almost shot."
"Me too," Teyla admitted.
"Do you understand us?" I asked the cyborg. She blinked, as if her artificial eyes needed it, and nodded affirmatively.
"I understand now," she said. "My processor was damaged after being in the cryo-pod. Combat protocols are loaded but inactive. I need help."
"Phew," Ihaar exhaled. "We're always happy to help!"
"Shut up," Alvar elbowed the Ancient in the ribs. "And think about what she just said!"
"First of all — who are you?" I asked.
"Object-41," the cyborg identified herself.
"That doesn't tell me anything."
"I am the forty-first specimen of the second generation of enhanced soldiers for fighting the Wraith, Project Saya," it said... she said... Anyway, an answer was received.
"A machine," Ihaar stated. "A hybrid of organic and mechanical."
"A cyborg," I defined.
"Correct," the lady with the tubes said. "Call me Object-41."
"In my homeland, guys who call themselves by numbers usually get hanged by tribunal verdict," I muttered. "Do you mind if we call you 'Saya'?"
"I don't care," the cyborg clipped. "I need help."
Object-41, also known as "Saya."
"Yes, so do we," I admitted. "And you can help us."
"How?" the cyborg asked, switching all her attention to me.
"We need to get out of here," I said. "And you're standing in the passage. My friends are nervous. How about we get to the surface and talk about how we can be useful to each other?"
"Unacceptable," the cyborg cut off. "I cannot allow you to leave the facility."
"That doesn't sound very good," Teyla commented.
"Why?" I asked.
"The pseudo-intelligence of this base has designated you as hostile subjects," the cyborg said. "You have infiltrated a restricted facility. You have violated security protocols. You have gained illegal access to the database. You must be destroyed."
"Can we destroy her now?" Ihaar asked quietly.
My thoughts were doing the tectonic dance. What kind of madhouse was this?
"I'm not against it," Alvar chimed in.
"Me neither," Emmagan added quietly.
"Quiet," I ordered, feeling my finger sweat on the trigger. "Something's going on here."
"Yes, they want to kill us," Ihaar "clarified" the essence of the unfolding situation. "I'm for us killing her first!"
"Seconded," Alvar approved.
The cyborg, meanwhile, didn't take her eyes off me.
I, on the other hand... was thinking.
That virtual intelligence that Ihaar had wiped to hell had identified us as a threat. Because we were strangers here. And we'd caused as much damage as we could.
But... Why hadn't she killed us immediately? Why did she wait? Why analyze us? It was obvious that Saya wasn't waiting for the right moment — that moment had been lost the moment we discovered her. The element of surprise was gone.
So... what did that mean?
What did she say first? Before she announced that she was actually our executioner?
"You said you needed help," I reminded her.
"Correct."
"With what, exactly?"
"The platform was damaged during cryogenic freezing," Saya explained. "Combat protocols cannot be executed due to the failure of several systems. Repairs are required. I have analyzed your speech and actions. You can repair me so I can complete the pseudo-intelligence's task."
"She wants us to fix her so she can kill us!" Ihaar simplified. "I told you, the local programmers are psychopaths! Who in their right mind would write logic like that for a combat unit?"
And here I had to agree.
Whatever was broken in her, she could have simply beaten us to death with her hands and feet. Or at least tried to.
So why didn't she?
"The platform was damaged during cryogenic freezing," Object-41 repeated. "I cannot execute combat protocols."
"That's nonsense," Jensen voiced his opinion.
And he was damn right.
No matter how skilled the locals were at augmentation and creating super-soldiers, with soldiers like this, it was no wonder they lost to the Wraith. I agreed with Ihaar — whoever wrote the historical chronicle on this base had clearly lied about the Salumai super-soldiers destroying millions of Wraith.
"And what happens if we don't help you?" I asked.
"In that case, the self-destruct system will activate," Saya replied. "I have already overloaded the generators. In five minutes, they will explode."
"Are you kidding me?" Ihaar flared up, staring at his scanner. "Oraei take my family! She's right — the generators on this base are starting to accumulate energy! The explosion won't just detonate them, it will be amplified by the Naquadria!"
"And what will the consequences be?" I asked, continuing the staring contest with the cyborg.
"Is there a difference for us?" the agitated engineer asked. "We'll die in the reactor detonation!"
"Ihaar!" I snapped at the Ancient. "That wasn't the question!"
"The Naquadria will act as a catalyst for the explosion, amplifying it a hundredfold, if I understand its deposits under our feet even a little bit," Ihaar said rapidly. "We're talking about an entire planet exploding! A chain reaction will, at best, vaporize half this world, and the rest will just fall apart! We need to get out of here!"
"You will not leave the complex," Saya repeated. "My task..."
"Can I just shoot her in the head already?" Jensen asked.
"Don't," I hissed.
"Why not?" Ihaar protested. "We're at a dead end!"
"Not quite," I said, looking into her soulless eyes. "Actually, we're facing a super-soldier..."
"A very problematic super-soldier!" Ihaar reminded me. "Who wants to kill us! And if we keep dragging this out, she'll kill us by blowing up the planet! I understand you want a sample of a Salumai super-soldier because I lost the database! But in the end, she's going to kill us! We need to do something!"
"So do it," I said with emphasis. "Come here and help me fix her."
"Have you lost your mind?" Ihaar was taken aback.
"I have the same question," Alvar admitted.
"Only a little," I said. "Saya, how long will your repair take?"
"The problem is mechanical," she replied. "The restraining controllers need to be disconnected to restore mobility to the joints and servos. There was a short circuit in the power circuit. The controllers didn't disconnect. Execution of combat protocols is impossible."
Clear as mud... Wait, hold on!
"The controllers, those are the things running all over your body?" I clarified, meaning the reinforced hoses.
"Correct," Saya visibly touched one of them. "For proper hibernation, they connect to the internal network and control the operation of internal organs and mechanisms. I cannot disconnect them myself, because mechanical disconnection would damage the control circuit..."
"I didn't understand any of that," Teyla admitted.
"This web of wires on her is a special device without which she would have died in the stasis pod," I translated. "The device is connected to something inside her. And it didn't disconnect properly."
"So why doesn't she just rip it off?" Alvar asked. "She's going to blow everything up anyway."
"I think that would leave her non-functional," I said. "And she needs to make sure none of us escape from here. Am I right?"
Otherwise, it would be pointless for her to just stand in our way and do nothing.
"You correctly understand the tasks assigned to me," the cyborg clipped. "Three minutes and forty seconds remain until the explosion. I will reduce the time to detonation if you continue to mislead me and waste time!"
"Ihaar!" I yelled at the Ancient.
"I'm not going to fix my own future killer!" he balked.
Damn it, which one of us was supposed to be the representative of an advanced version of humanity? Why did I immediately understand what to do, and he still didn't?
"You don't have to fix her," I hissed through my teeth, nodding toward the cyborg. I was hinting as best I could. Just hoping she wouldn't understand! "Just do what you're best at with their technology! Get it now?"
The Ancient blinked a couple of times, then broke into a smile.
"Yes, I get it!" he confirmed, stepping out from behind Teyla and Alvar. "I need my portable computer and scanner. Can I connect to you for diagnostics?"
"I have indicated the malfunction," the cyborg said, watching the chief engineer approach. "No others have been detected, no further intervention is required."
"We don't want you to fail your task, do we?" I asked. "To avoid messing up, we need to understand how you're built and do everything right. Our ignorance already damaged this base's systems. You don't want us to damage you too out of our own stupidity, do you?"
"A logical conclusion," the cyborg said after a moment's thought, raising her right hand as Ihaar approached her. "Diagnostic ports are located on the fourth rib."
"Convenient," Ihaar muttered, using his equipment to connect his laptop to Saya's software. "Hyperspace window! What kind of horror do you have instead of an operating system?"
"This is the most advanced version of the program," Object-41 reported. "It is simple and easy to use."
"Uh-huh," Ihaar grunted. "If it was written by a computer pervert for his fetishist buddies. Okay, I'm connected, analyzing the problem..."
"Do you have enough time for that?" I asked in the most innocent tone I could muster. I figured James Cameron, if he knew about the existence of such "killer cyborgs," would just hug himself and cry. And John Connor would have beaten Skynet with a single slingshot as a teenager.
"Okay, two and a half minutes left," Ihaar stated. "No, not enough. The problem is software-related."
"You'll have to give us more time," I addressed the cyborg. "We won't be able to fix you in time."
"Unacceptable," Saya replied. "I cannot increase the countdown without disabling the guaranteed destruction of your..."
The light in her eyes went out, and the cyborg pitched forward. Instinctively, I caught her and grunted in surprise. Heavy...
"Done, I've shut down her processor," the Ancient announced. "Alive, but incapable of active action."
"Let's move!" Alvar grabbed Teyla and in one leap was in the corridor. Only there did he let the stunned Athosian woman back onto her feet. "How much time do we have? Two minutes?"
"Twelve," Ihaar said, disconnecting from the cyborg's body. "She couldn't give us more time because with the energy accumulators running, it was simply impossible. And the mission parameters didn't allow her to disable what would have guaranteed our destruction. But I used her programs to do it. We have an extra ten minutes to get out of here. Even disconnected, the accumulators have already started the reaction. Once their cores start breaking down without cooling, everything here will explode!"
"Alvar, help me lift her," I ordered, slinging the cyborg's arm over my shoulder. Yeah, she looked skinny, but she must weigh a hundred kilos. Was she solid metal inside or something? "Teyla, run to the exit and radio the second 'jumper' to get out of here. Ihaar — you're with her. Try to start the ship and bring it closer to the exit."
"You want to take this scrap metal with you?" the Ancient was surprised. "Why? She wanted to kill us!"
"And we're going to study her, including her blood and technology," I announced. "And where the Salumai failed, we can succeed. Since she has a chip with a program in her head, it can be reprogrammed! Get it?"
"But everything's about to explode here!" the Ancient threw up his hands.
"Then don't waste time," Alvar told him, handing over his weapon. "You heard the order? Get to it, engineer. This isn't civilian life; you're in the army!"
"Because of you, we're all going to die!" the Ancient said before Teyla dragged him by the sleeve toward the exit.
"I hope he's wrong, Commander," Jensen said quietly to me, slinging the cyborg's other arm over his shoulder.
"Yeah," I had to agree. "Me too. Let's haul!"
* * *
We almost made it.
"I'm registering an explosion at the base site!" Ihaar shouted at the very moment the second group's "jumper," flying several kilometers ahead of us, entered the event horizon of the Stargate.
Gripping the controls so hard my hands hurt, I was squeezing every bit of performance out of the machine. And a little more.
Internally praying for the strength of Ancient technology and wishing long life to the creator of this particular "jumper," I tried to ignore the multiplying red warnings filling the virtual screen before me. To hell with what was happening around us!
The main thing now was to make it through the gate!
And we almost did!
Teyla warned the second group. Ihaar managed to move the "jumper" on his second try. Alvar and I practically ran, dragging the cyborg to the ship, and shoved the unconscious body into the cargo bay.
We had three minutes left!
But something went wrong — only the first minute had passed, and the planet was already exploding behind us.
"The Earth's crust is cracking!" Ihaar reported. "The ground is unstable!"
"Mikhail, the second 'jumper' has arrived," Chaya informed us. "Where are you?"
"Approaching," I hissed. "We'll be there soon..."
"Oh, no!" Ihaar whispered, half-rising from his seat.
"Damn it all!" Alvar cursed.
"Oh, Ancestors," Teyla clasped her hands in a prayer gesture.
And there was plenty to be sad about.
The platform on which the gate was installed had cracked. Tectonic shifts and the disruption of soil integrity couldn't leave the twenty-five-ton gate unaffected.
The "Ring," under its own weight, had sunk more than halfway into the split earth.
And it was stuck there.
The option of flying into the gate in a "jumper" in that situation was impossible. Moreover, if we shut down the gate to dial Atlantis again and burn away the excess soil with the unstable hyper-tunnel vortex, it wouldn't work! The tunnel wouldn't establish if there was something inside the ring blocking the formation of the event horizon!
That's why, in ancient times, when hyperdrives were really weak, people, when getting rid of enemies who came through the gate, would bury the latter. That way, they could never be opened from either side.
Our only chance to escape was to stop next to the gate and jump into the open part of the event horizon. But that would take a lot of time — several seconds! And the soil was already exploding ten meters behind the "jumper's" tail! We simply didn't have enough time!
"We need to escape into space!" Ihaar said. "The Hippaforalkus will get here in a week and a half..."
"We'll die of thirst faster," I retorted, closing my eyes. "Hold on!"
"Don't even think about ramming that!" the Ancient cried out.
I wasn't going to.
Two glowing yellow points detached from the "jumper's" main engines mounted along the sides. An instant — and the homing projectiles entered the damaged soil in the area that had buried the gate. Like a hot knife through butter...
A massive explosion literally vaporized an area the size of a basketball court in front of the gate. The "Ancestors' Ring" finally tipped over onto its back side, revealing the event horizon to us.
The virtual screen beeped, outlining the ship's stern as an area with significant damage. For better aerodynamics, I had to fly without shields... and all the energy was going to the engines and control systems...
The ship was violently shaken by the explosion behind it. Some systems shut down; numerous dents appeared on the rear ramp.
The engines started to choke, but, thank the engineers, the main drives retracted into the hull as soon as we were near the gate.
"We're coming in!" I warned Chaya a second before we flew into the Stargate, which was beginning to sink deeper into the soil.
And three seconds later, we emerged from the Atlantis gate. The damaged "jumper" flew further than it should have, nearly smashing the staircase connecting two levels of the control room, with its welcoming inscriptions in the Ancient language, to pieces. But we were intercepted — it seemed something like this was expected, since the operators on duty at the control panels manually activated the hangar's landing system above our heads.
"Close the gate!" I shouted into the radio as soon as I realized the catastrophe had been averted.
"Raise the shield!" Chaya ordered, running from the control room down to the stairs.
The Jumper, no longer fully under my control, began slowly turning its stern toward the staircase to rise to the hangar level. I saw the energy shield surrounding the Stargate of Atlantis, resembling frozen water with intricate patterns. For a moment, the event horizon inside the shield flooded with bright light — the hyper-tunnel had channeled streams of energy from the exploding planet in our wake. If it breached the shield, the destructive force of the exploding Salumai would follow us through.
Atlantis wouldn't survive that.
And then everything went dark — the hyper-tunnel was severed. The Gate shut down. The danger had passed.
"Everyone alive?" Chaya's voice came from the hidden speaker of the Jumper's panel. "Any wounded?"
"Just a slightly singed ego," I didn't hide, leaning back in my seat. "If I ever want to take a risk for some dubious technology again, shoot me in the leg."
"Better the head," Alvar grumbled. "I'm sure only Chaya will mourn your loss."
"And Trebal," Teyla added.
"What makes you say that?" I turned to the Athosian woman.
Emmagan, forcing a smile, pointed a finger at the Jumper's observation porthole. Turning my head, I saw the Dorandian woman, frozen in front of the ship that had landed on the platform. And, judging by her expression, the commander of the Hippaforalkus wouldn't mind giving someone a couple of corrective kicks to the head.
How good that we have a domesticated Wraith! He'll do, right? He'll do, won't he⁈