Sometimes, after listening to my subordinates' reports, I feel like both laughing and crying at the same time.
And this despite the fact that it feels like nails are being driven into my temples with the percussive blows of enormous hammers every second.
And also, I finally understood why the Earth expedition to another galaxy needed a staff psychologist. And I'm starting to regret that we don't have a staff psychiatrist. Even a student would do.
"Now let's go through it again," I said, emptying a glass of water and placing the vessel directly on the high-tech console of the horseshoe-shaped table in the Council Chamber. "We have a program to improve the Hippaforalkus's shields?"
"Correct," Trebal said. "Optimization of energy dissipation and projection. It will allow the same shield power output but reduce energy consumption by twenty percent."
"The program was actually developed for Aurora-class ships, and there it increased shield power by fifty percent," Ihaar, sitting next to the battleship commander, interjected.
I nodded silently. Got it, I'm not stupid. If I were stupid, I clearly wouldn't have understood.
"We also have a program to optimize energy consumption for the ship's life support system?" I repeated.
"Again, it was developed for the Aurora, but with the necessary modifications, it will also be useful for the Hippaforalkus," the Chief Engineer said. "With deep reworking of the program, we can apply it to Atlantis as well."
"We know how to improve the maneuvering thrusters...?"
"Yes, for the Aurora, but with modifications..." Ihaar started. Receiving a sensitive elbow jab from Trebal, he shut up. "It will work for both the battleship and the city."
"Can we improve the sublight engines?"
"Yes."
"And the decompression response system, i.e., hull breaches. Including the ones we still have from the water?"
"Yes, we have that."
"We have an optimized power system for the Hippaforalkus's hyperdrive?"
"Yes."
"And it's suitable for Atlantis?"
"It needs a lot of modifications and mathematical models to calculate the correct constant for opening a hyper-tunnel and... Ouch!" it seemed Trebal's nails were digging into his arm now. "Yes, we can do it!"
"And we can improve the Jumpers' power supply?"
"Yes."
"And their cloaking screen?"
"Yes."
"We know how to use the generator energy output equation to improve their performance?"
"Yes."
"We know how to reconfigure the city's and battleship's power system from ZPMs to reduce the load by ten percent?"
"Yes."
"We have ready protocols for liquid waste recycling systems that will let us spend less energy but get better purified water?"
"Yes."
"We know how to make the chair on the Hippaforalkus more economical when launching projectiles?"
"And those same protocols will work for Atlantis."
"And also, we have a good hundred things adaptable for the battleship and city-ship, ranging from improving the lighting system to allow turning off unnecessary parts, to an adaptive power system for auxiliary systems that will go into standby mode while performing current tasks if no one with the Ancient Gene is nearby, right?" I pressed.
"All correct," Chaya confirmed. "The Aurora's crew spent a lot of time on models like these."
"And we can also improve the Hippaforalkus's hyperdrive," Trebal said. "First, make it as efficient as on the latest generation ships, like the Tria. Not to mention making it intergalactic instead of interstellar."
"With certain work on analogous systems, we could probably improve Atlantis's hyperdrive too," Chaya suggested. "Unfortunately, we're not able to study and reproduce these systems ourselves. At least not quickly. Lantean technology," she reminded. "But, thanks to Tribune Titus's work on several projects, we can still improve a few things."
"And the best part of all this is that we won't have to redo much of the wiring and mechanisms of Atlantis itself," Ihaar chimed in. "The upgrades are designed so that the new main power channels will take over some of the secondary ones. We'll just need to upgrade them in some places, equip them with new crystals with updated software... In short, if we take Atlantis's current total energy consumption as one hundred percent, we'll reduce it by seventy percent. This will allow us to stretch future ZPMs over a much longer period..."
"Future ZPMs," I reminded, forcing a smile. "Because to make even half of these wonderful changes on Atlantis, we'll need to drain all the energy from our current ZPM, right?"
"That's exactly the part that contradicts your plan," Chaya explained. "We won't be able to work with most systems, for example, the shields, the city's engines, if we stay at the bottom of the ocean. We need to raise the city to the surface for such intervention."
"And in principle, we intend to intervene in the city's main and critical systems," Ihaar supported. "If something goes wrong, it's better to be on the surface so we don't sink in case of an error or failure of some systems. Like the shields..."
"So, we know how to raise the city to the surface?" I clarified, looking at Chaya.
"Roughly," she admitted. "The city filled part of the non-critical lower levels with water, as well as all the ballast tanks and those used for storing desalinated water, to achieve negative buoyancy. That way we don't get pushed to the surface, despite the large amount of air under the shield dome and inside the city's rooms. As you understand, this gives Atlantis positive buoyancy..."
"Don't forget the gravity anchor," Ihaar interjected.
"Gravity anchor?" I asked Chaya.
"As far as I understand, the city was originally designed to be based on the ocean surface," the girl said. "Despite its size and mass, it's still subject to drift from ocean currents. Minimal, practically imperceptible, but over a long period on the surface... Yes, we could drift around the ocean. Very slowly, of course."
"To prevent that, the Lantians created a gravity anchor," Ihaar took over. "The city has several of them, so even if we drop one, it'll be fine..."
"Did any of you understand that you haven't actually explained to me what this anchor is?" I asked.
"The gravity anchor was deployed automatically from the lower compartments of Atlantis upon landing," Chaya explained. "It drills into the ground under the ocean floor and, using the difference in electromagnetic potential between its coils and the city, holds Atlantis in one position."
"Like an anchor on archaic sea ships," Ihaar grinned. "Except the anchor chain isn't real, it's based on magnetism. Honestly, I never even thought such technology existed. And I wouldn't have known about it if I hadn't been repairing the jumpers in the underwater hangar... So, anyone who was worried, don't be — a tsunami won't wash us off the surface."
The chief engineer seemed quite pleased with his own joke.
"I don't get why we're hesitating?" Ihaar couldn't hold back after a minute of silence, looking around. "We have a real opportunity to improve Lantian technology!"
"Better keep quiet," Trebal advised. "Before you run with that idea and pester Chaya, you should have at least consulted me first."
"What's the problem?" the engineer asked in surprise.
"The problem is that to save energy in the future, we'd need to raise the ship to the ocean surface right now," I explained. "And lose energy by rebuilding the city's power system according to plans that haven't even passed stress tests in reality. So here's the situation. If the Wraith come flying in, we'll have a city with no power on the ocean surface, unable to defend itself."
"But there's the satellite!"
"It'll destroy one, two, maybe five ships, but then it'll be destroyed," Chaya said. "The Wraith, once they know we're here, won't leave us alone. More will come after the first. And each time there'll be more of them."
"That's exactly how they broke through Atlantis's defenses last time," Trebal confirmed. "But back then the city was full of Lantians who knew its capabilities and their own strength."
"And they had three ZPMs," I noted. "And for some reason they didn't think of these upgrades. They could have drained one ZPM and saved a ton of energy."
"To be fair, they did optimize the power system," Chaya said. "Six times during the war."
"Ah, so we're still on the Ancients' energy-saving mode," I said, clutching my head. "Can we make some of those changes?"
"We can," Ihaar said.
"No, we can't," Chaya countered. "The changes and energy redistribution would happen throughout the entire city. We'd affect the whole power system. Change one thing, you have to deal with another, then a third, and so on. We'll inevitably reach the point where we have to raise the city to the surface and finish working on the shields and hyperdrives there. The only question is time. Either we do it all quickly, or we stretch it out over days, maybe months. But because we'd be interfering with the control and power systems, we'd lose energy from the parts that weren't changed right away."
"And if we change everything at once?" I asked.
"You'd need a Lantian for that..."
"We have one," I reminded.
"With knowledge of the city's systems," Trebal added.
"Difficult, but possible."
"And he'd need to spend several days in the control chair to do it all as fast as possible," Chaya said. "I ran the calculations, Mikhail... If you're the one doing it, and I design the algorithm to transfer the necessary upgrade data to you, we'd end up right back where we started — there'd be a time gap between operations, since you can't perform them all simultaneously. And we'd lose the ZPM's energy."
"I could do it," Trebal offered. "My genetics are worse, but I have more knowledge."
"The chair won't give you the same access level as Mikhail," Chaya objected. "So we come to the same conclusion: either we do it all slowly and lose the ZPM, or we..."
"No."
"What do you mean, no?" Chaya asked.
"Exactly what it sounds like," I replied, leaning back in my chair. "We're not doing this on Atlantis. The city on the surface is a defenseless target. Even if we shoot down the Wraith ships, they've got tons of darts on them." I looked at Ihaar. "And even if we destroy them, more will come. Not to mention we need to test all these developments — what if they don't even work?"
"My people and the entire Aurora crew worked on them for ten thousand years!" Ihaar said, offended.
"Then test them on the Hippaforalkus," I snapped. "And if they really work, we'll find the time and means to let you access Atlantis's systems."
"In that case, we'd still need to raise Atlantis from the bottom," Trebal said.
"Why?" I didn't understand.
"Because to make changes to the ship, if we want to do them quickly and without mistakes, we'd need to use the ship's chair in full system-link mode," Chaya explained. "And you'd be needed for that too..."
"Forget it," I cut her off. "I'm not sticking my head in that devilish machine. I don't even want to get into Atlantis's chair, and that one has safety systems! I'm not getting into that hellish contraption again! If you want to upgrade something on the battleship, do it manually."
"But that could take months!" Ihaar exclaimed. "With the chair, we could just redistribute the energy flows through the existing network with minimal repair..."
"Well, then I won't keep anyone," I said, getting up from the table. "You have a lot of work ahead, ladies and gentlemen!"
* * *
"That was rude," Chaya caught up with me at the teleportation booth. For a second, thinking about her words, I realized I'd forgotten where I wanted to go.
Damn senility.
"Yeah, probably," I agreed, stepping inside the tiny room with the image of Atlantis on the wall screen. Red dots, the locations of other teleportation chambers, glowed invitingly on the map. "I'll ask Teyla to buy flowers on one of the planets and send them all as an apology. 'Sorry that you lay in tin cans for ten thousand years, dreaming up various improvements that I won't let you implement.' Yeah, I think that's an appropriate apology."
"Actually," Chaya stood in the booth opposite me and touched one of the red dots. The doors closed, and for a moment everything around us was engulfed in a blinding white flash. "I meant that it's rude to leave a meeting without giving any instructions in place of the rejected initiatives. I'm sure Trebal will explain to Ihaar, and he to the others, that they need to wait until we acquire a new ZPM."
"A new one?" I asked. "Remind me, don't we need one ZPM for Atlantis and one for the Hippaforalkus to retrofit them?"
"We do," she confirmed.
"And we need at least one more so the city doesn't end up without power for all its systems afterward," I said.
"Better yet, two, so the battleship can operate at full capacity," the Proculucian added, following me out.
"So, four total," I said, annoyed by the simple math. "And we only have one. And I think if you knew where to reliably find more, you'd have told me already."
"Yes, I would have," Chaya agreed. "That's one of the goals of my searches. So far, no results. The only viable option is to start charging the empty ZPMs we have."
"Project Arcturus," I realized. "Do you have any ideas on how to use it safely?"
"No," the Ancient admitted. "The more I work on it, the more I realize the problems just multiply. Too many unknowns. On the other hand, we could just fire it up regardless of the consequences. I think we could get a few percent of energy before some new problems pop up..."
"Damn," I cursed, finally realizing where we were. The lower levels of the central pier. And I was planning to... Where was I even planning to go? And why? "Wrong place."
"Right place," Chaya corrected me. "You're still in the city."
Strangely enough, the Ancient's simple joke calmed me down a bit.
According to internal data, and because of its design, Atlantis was divided into seven districts.
The Inner City was the complex of buildings in the central part, surrounding the Central Spire.
There were three large and three small piers, making the city, when viewed from above, look like a snowflake. And besides size, the main difference in function and importance of these districts was that in the middle of the "legs" of each large pier, there was space and docking clamps for receiving Lantian-type starships, like the Aurora or the Hippaforalkus. You could also perform maintenance and repairs there, by the way. Thanks to the few workshops that existed in Atlantis.
Yeah, for their dry docks, the Ancients didn't create separate workshops for producing everything needed. Slackers.
On the small piers, at the far end from the Central Spire, were the drone launchers.
The large piers were the West, East, and South. The small ones were the North, Southwest, and Southeast. In the last one, by the way, was most of the city's living quarters. If I understood correctly, the residential block we occupied in the Inner City was meant for the city's elite, the top brass, the best specialists, scientists, and so on. That's why there were only five hundred of them in one of the small skyscrapers next to the Spire. Meanwhile, the "servants" were clearly supposed to live on the outskirts, in the Southeast Pier.
Chaya once said the city had other, smaller residential sectors, clearly converted from many empty rooms. But apparently, that was done near the end of the war, when they were taking in refugees from other planets.
Map of Atlantis.
By the way, the South and Southwest piers were connected by a "bridge." In my past life, I'd wondered several times what that was, and why this element, for example, wasn't on the copy of Atlantis that the Asurans used.
It turned out to be quite simple: it was a system for desalinating ocean water. It could produce any type of water except heavy water, straight from the ocean. Mineral, drinking, technical, carbonated, distilled, rich in magnesium, calcium, vitamins, minerals, and so on.
It made sense that the Asurans didn't have it — beings that don't eat, drink, or rest don't need water.
And yeah, I gave the piers those names myself. The Ancients just called them districts one through seven. No damn imagination at all. Surprised they didn't make Atlantis in the shape of a sphere or a cube. I mean, why not?
At the moment, the Inner City was the most lived-in part of the city. The rest... Honestly, I still hadn't taken the time to just walk through the corridors and see what Atlantis actually looked like.
I'd still thought that everything I'd seen in the series was enough and that nothing new could surprise me.
Turns out, there is such a possibility.
"Familiar place," I said tiredly.
"South Pier," Chaya confirmed, looking at the empty corridor shrouded in semi-darkness. On the walls, traces of flooding were visible in places; in some spots, furniture was still lying around... It looked like the repair crews weren't in a hurry to get here.
You could feel it from the slight chill — the life support system here apparently wasn't running at full capacity. Come to think of it, if we fixed all the damage in the city's wiring, how much energy would Atlantis drain from the ZPM? Power doesn't flow through burned wires, as you know. Especially if they have a tendency to fall apart during a short circuit or overload.
"Like I said, familiar," I sighed. "A couple of levels down and we'll be at the lab where I was created."
I wasn't even surprised that we'd been heading here the whole time. And there were the familiar doors...
"Not just you," Chaya said quietly. "The nanite lab where I worked was on the East Pier. But... this very lab on the South Pier is where the first replicator was created. Later, as I understand, the project was moved to Asurans."
"Strange they left the equipment," I admitted.
"I suspect it was brought back from Asurans before the Lantians destroyed it," the Ancient said just as quietly. "I came here a couple of times to look at the logs..."
"Thinking of creating new replicators?" I joked.
"The thought crossed my mind," Chaya admitted. "Workers who don't sleep, don't eat, don't need rest. Do whatever you want them to... Too tempting to ignore such a possibility, isn't it?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"Tell me that behind the doors of this lab, on the table where I woke up, there isn't a replicator named FREN sitting there, ready to help us fight the Asurans?"
I really don't want us to repeat the Earth expedition's experience of wiping out an entire civilization. Sentient nano-machines living on their own planet, not bothering anyone for ten thousand years. Then humans show up, start demanding ZPMs from them, insulting them, fighting them. And then blow up the city, a copy of Atlantis, when they find out the sentient machines want revenge on the Lantians' legacy for trying to destroy them.
There was a lot to that story.
The Terrans later stole a ZPM from the Asurans for their own needs. You'd think, why would the robots be offended? Who'd get upset about some monkeys flying into your world and stealing valuable technology...
But don't forget, the Terrans also attacked Asuran facilities on the planet with nuclear weapons because they thought the Asurans were going to fly to Earth and blow it to hell.
Logically, the Asurans flew back and gave Atlantis a hell of a beating in response. By that time, the humans had found the Tria, whose crew booted the Terrans out of the city. And they were very surprised that the arriving Asuran replicators didn't respond to the programming implanted in them not to harm the Ancients.
The Asurans killed all the Ancients from the Tria. Then the Terrans, who had retaken control of the city, killed them too.
Also, when the Terrans interacted with the replicators, they activated an attack command against the Wraith, which the Wraith had disabled ten thousand years earlier. The replicators snapped to attention and... started destroying human planets to starve the Wraith out.
The Terrans didn't like that, so they started shooting their fleet with new weapons. And when that tactic played out, the Terran expedition decided to deal with the Asurans on a familiar scale.
In the end, they created a replicator named FREN, who attracted all the replicators on Asurans to herself, causing them to merge into a replicator-Godzilla, which broke through the planet's crust, reached the core... And Asurans exploded. Along with hundreds of ZPMs, continents built over with the Ancients' buildings and technologies, all the knowledge, and almost all the replicators in the Pegasus Galaxy.
Why "almost"?
Because some survived and caused a lot of trouble for the Terrans afterward.
And I'm not even mentioning that in the attack on Asurans, the Terrans enlisted the help of the Wraith. And the Wraith, not being idiots, stole an unknown number of ZPMs from the Asurans. And started a clone factory — thanks to cloning, by the way, they overwhelmed the Ancients with numbers.
And using the stolen ZPMs, the Wraith created a super-hive, like the one we ran from during the mission to the Aurora. And on that super-hive, the Wraith flew to Earth to feed in the Milky Way. To stop them, the Terrans had to enlist the help of another Wraith, who gave them two new ZPMs. Yes, those were also stolen from the dying replicator world in the Pegasus Galaxy.
In the end, Atlantis returned to Earth and stayed there because they never made a continuation of the series. I think there were books and comics, but I never saw them in Russian, and I couldn't read them in the original language because I didn't know it well enough...
So I don't know what happened in the end. But I'd bet my life that the Wraith showed up about ten more times with numerous ZPMs they'd stolen from Asurans.
Yeah, that's all a very generalized description of events that happened over several years with the expedition, but the point is simple — don't poke your hands into things you can't handle!
Anyway, I think my story, after returning from Dorandan, should have sobered Chaya up and explained why I don't want to get involved with the Asurans without having absolutely anything in my favor.
It's the same with everything here!
I have a plan — to gain strength by collecting the remnants of Ancient technology on other planets. But not to get involved with the most vicious and technologically powerful enemies of the Terrans from the series. Because I don't have a strong desire to get my ass kicked and act in a time crunch, making one mistake after another.
"Maybe you'll open it yourself and take a look?" Chaya suggested with an innocent look.
I pulled the impulse pistol from its holster and readied it.
"I suppose it's pointless to ask if you're a replicator luring me into a trap?" I asked, just in case.
"According to the base code, replicators were forbidden from taking the form of any living or once-living Ancient," Chaya said. "So... Are you going to open it, or are you going to stand here?"
Shit... And I didn't even bring a shield, as luck would have it — it's recharging.
Sighing, I ran my hand over the control panel.
Three faintly glowing blue crystals chimed melodiously, and the doors slid open, revealing the familiar, brightly lit laboratory.
And also the machine the Ancients used to create replicators... And which General Hippaforalkus used to create my body.
If I remember correctly, the group of replicators from Asurans used it to create people whose bodies contained nanites capable of "repairing" damage to human bodies. Cuts, wounds, and so on...
And I also saw a figure in light-colored clothes with dark hair, sitting on the surface of the replicator creation machine. Head bowed, she was pressing something on the Ancient scanner she held in her hands.
For fuck's sake, Chaya... You ruined the song!
Replicator Creation Machine.
Hearing the doors open, the girl sitting on the replicator machine looked up at us and raised her hand.
"Hi! I'm..."
I raised my hand too. And before she could finish, I fired the impulse pistol.