There's something soul-stirring about sitting in the middle of old ruins, long polished by wind and time, overgrown with grass and bushes, thousands of light-years from the place you call home. Sitting, leaning your back against ancient stones, roughly hewn due to their density, letting the cool breeze wash over your face.
Staring at the starry sky and not seeing a single familiar constellation. Droplets of light, seeming so microscopic, insignificant, but actually being gigantic thermonuclear reactors created by the laws of the universe, are mesmerizing.
Peaceful... And it feels like the whole world can wait.
A tranquility that doesn't even exist on Atlantis. Now, when I don't have to run anywhere, shoot, jump, think about how to fix one technical disaster or another that's cropped up after ten thousand years of Ancient technology lying dormant, I think I'm starting to understand.
No, not the plans of the Ancients, or even the secrets of the universe.
But just how oppressive the atmosphere is in the city of the Ancestors.
Clean, filtered air can't compare to the air filled with the scents of grass on the surface. No lighting fixture, no matter how perfect, can replace natural light.
A lamp on the ceiling, on the wall, or even above the door can't replace the warmth of a star. And no notion of security overcomes the growing discomfort of feeling like you're inside a giant tin can.
Now I understand why the teams working outside of Atlantis change so often. Why so many want to repair ships and the outpost on Taranis. Why so few want to go to the drilling platform or the Wraith ship.
Why the topic of continuing to stockpile sand from Lantea-2 keeps coming up again, even though we have a huge amount of scrap metal that can be melted down and turned into needed parts.
The human psyche, even of beings as advanced as the Ancients, has its limits. People spent ten thousand years in a tin can called the Aurora, packed into even smaller tin cans of stasis pods.
I pulled them out of those cans and gave them a bigger can.
The exhilaration of returning to life dulled their sense of being trapped for a while, and then the depression slowly but surely began to return.
And they're silent. Not used to complaining, because usually they weren't sympathized with and their wishes were ignored. So the demand for antidepressants and sedatives is increasing.
People solve the problem as best they can. Because the leader, meaning me, said, "We will stay underwater because it's safe." They're used to obeying. But habits and traditions have an expiration date.
It's ironic that I only discovered that Atlantis is turning into a boiling cauldron of passions while I'm on another planet.
Yeah... Better late than never.
Still... It's so good here. But my soul feels heavy and rotten. Is this a midlife crisis or something? Or did I just not notice that the submerged Atlantis was oppressing me too?
"An exciting moment, a sweet moment," I sang barely audibly, watching the two moons of this world. "A childhood dream come true..."
A body stirred beside me, dressed in her usual Nomad leather "outfit." Even the polymer vest with its load-bearing webbing, filled with ammunition, looked good on her.
"You dreamed of sitting in a night ambush since you were a kid?" Larrin asked me just as quietly, sitting down closer. "What down-to-earth dreams you have, though."
Ah, village folk...
"That we are alone in the world, you and I," I continued, reciting "Lovett's Confession" from memory.
"Misha, are you alright?" Larrin asked in a puzzled voice. "There are ten other people here besides us."
"Only you, and me, and the darkness," I continued, admiring the stars.
"Is everything okay?" Teyla appeared from the other side. "I heard some noise."
"Misha is delirious," Larrin pointed a finger at me.
"I feel like crying and singing," I didn't stop, peering at the dark crowns of the surrounding trees.
"It's the tension from the long wait," Teyla said. "It happens when you wait a long time and nothing happens. It was the same for a few Athosians after the last culling, when we were hiding and didn't know if the Wraith had left..."
"And to be with you, in the dark with you..."
"Or it's a brain parasite," Larrin looked at me warily. "One of our ships once died out from an infection like that. Had to destroy it to keep it from spreading to the others."
"And if death should suddenly appear," heartless sheep, ruining such a song with their comments. "Then let its name be Love."
"If death comes for us, its name will be Wraith," Larrin hissed through her teeth, elbowing me in the side. "And you'll just call them down on us with your wailing!"
Sighing with the feeling of an offended genius misunderstood by the local yokels, I pulled out the Ancient scanner. The device was set, just like five minutes ago when I last checked it, to the life signs detector. And currently, exactly twelve dots were lit up. In the same places they were supposed to be according to the plan.
Showing the device's screen to Larrin, then to Teyla, I said:
"Every group has someone with a device like this, so visitors won't just show up," I explained. "And all these twelve signals are well known to us. You have one too."
"Thanks, I had enough 'interaction' with that battleship," the moonlight of this planet's two moons illuminated Larrin's startled face. "I don't want another console to squeeze me dry like a lemon."
"If I'd known you were such a scaredy-cat," I sighed, not finishing the phrase. And it wasn't because of Teyla's disapproving look.
It was because of Larrin's sharp little fist slamming into my side. Watching the girl hiss in pain after meeting the resistance of the Ermen-made polymer vest, I even felt sorry for her.
It was probably a dumb idea to facilitate her getting the Ancient gene. But what's done is done. And we need loyal people with the gene.
Loyalty here, of course, is unproven in Larrin's case. But after we got DNA samples from her people and Celise managed to find a few suitable candidates among them... Well, things are working out quite well.
And that only strengthens my desire to send Larrin to the Ares. I genuinely feel sorry for Trebal. The battleship seems to be quite the racist and sees a half-breed as dirt under its nails.
Larrin, though... According to Trebal, the mental contact with the ship is even worse for her. But, you can always just not do it, right? Mental connection with Ancient devices is a conscious choice — at least with most of the technologies we know of.
They react to a mental impulse, a desire. And the "thinner the blood" and "cooler" the technology, the louder you need to "shout." I can control Ancient tech almost without realizing it or formulating mental commands. Trebal, Chaya, and Ihaar revealed the secret to me — to turn on, say, that Puddle Jumper, they need to form a clear mental instruction. For the scanner, though, they don't. For the control panel — it's hit or miss. But doors open by themselves, sensing the gene carrier.
So, in my opinion, the Ancient gene causes more problems than benefits. Although, it does have one use — protection from unauthorized access. But... pardon my Aurebesh, what kind of protection are we talking about if the same control consoles, including those governing the city's main systems, just need to be turned on? And they'll work until they're turned off. Or until a long period of disuse passes. And it's almost laughable that each device has a different "hibernation time." The scanner, for instance, shuts off immediately if taken from an Ancient's hands. Though, you can give it a direct order not to — and then it stays on for about an hour in anyone's hands. This function was recently discovered. And it's not present on all found devices.
I got the impression, and I'm pretty sure the guess is correct, that from the very beginning of the war, the Lantians were steadily lowering the gene-level access threshold. All this chaos with the equipment on Atlantis probably became possible because, by the end of the war, almost everyone who could flee from Ancient planets and outposts had gathered there — both Lantians and members of the younger races.
According to Celise, the gene Larrin now has won't be passed on to her children. It's weak, at Celise's own level, maybe a bit stronger. And in such circumstances, it will become latent in the next generation, at most in two. Provided, of course, that the father of her child isn't an Ancient.
Damn eugenics...
But, purely from a scientific standpoint, the Ancient gene is quite a potent thing. A achievement of genetics, not evolution.
The gene is passive by nature. It's not like in a computer game — "active ability, press F." It's like the genes responsible for ear shape, iris color, tooth enamel strength — that's how the Ancient gene works.
Our little doctor Blinking Eyes did a small study. Not for us, not for Larrin. For Kirik. Even a child can see how uncomfortable her guardian is.
So, according to her conclusions, which Chaya was able to partially confirm, the Ancient gene functions by the body producing a set of proteins and enzymes that interact with the skin, nervous system, and brain, allowing gene carriers to control Ancient technology with just their thoughts.
Given its very specific focus on interacting with technology and the absolute uselessness of its derivatives in everyday life, this confirms its artificial origin in principle. That is, I'm not talking about the younger races, but the gene itself, its origin among the Lantians.
Based on what I told Celise and the rest of our "department heads" about the gene, the girl medic buried herself in lab analyses and models and concluded that the gene, damn it, is tricky.
Let's start with the fact that Larrin, though she doesn't know it, didn't undergo an Ancient genetic procedure. Her gene wasn't inoculated.
Simply because that can only be done to a child and under certain circumstances — specifically, at a certain stage of physiological development. The girl was frankly lucky that her body had even a few close mutations for the gene to take hold. But in the next generation, as with Larrin, it will wither. And, most likely, forever.
This indicates that among the ancestors of modern Pegasus humans, there are descendants of the Ancients. But over a hundred generations, inoculated genes without a similar genetic input from the opposite sex simply degenerate.
And the Ancient gene is one of the first to die out. It's, damn it, fragile, easy to break. Or degenerate.
But, if the offspring inherits the gene from both parents, the inoculated gene will strengthen until it becomes a heritable part of the DNA. Or here's a slightly more interesting twist — if the gene isn't mutational from the start (i.e., an inoculation), but is received from a parent who has it naturally, then a half-breed has a much better chance of getting a rather strong gene and passing it on to future generations.
In other words, an inoculated gene is easily wiped from the DNA, while a natural one, having been fixed in the DNA over many generations, lasts a long time.
I should have seen Trebal's face when I told her that, in events I know of, some Ancients who left Atlantis ten thousand years ago later interbred with humans living on Earth, which is why in the future of the Earth's "Stargate" program, there were people with the natural Ancient gene.
The lady, who had not long before been talking about strengthening the blood and marriage alliances between strong genetic branches, wanted to shoot herself when I told her what humans on Earth were like ten thousand years ago.
Hunting, fishing, gathering, the first conscious settlements with rocks propping up roofs, shells and shiny things as decorations. I think around the same time, the first composite tools appeared — the bow (a stick with animal sinews stretched on it), the boat (a dug-out large tree trunk)... Mmm... Even if I assume that the Lantians lived for several years, I doubt they lived in isolation for several thousand years before saying, "Okay, these guys don't eat raw meat anymore, time to interbreed."
Honestly, I try not to think about it. It's disgusting.
Yeah, I once read that if a child from that time were brought to my current time on Earth, there wouldn't be any fundamental problems with them learning all the same things that modern Earth humans know.
But I just had to tell the eugenics proponents — at least to see their reaction: "What the hell? And these people were lecturing us about blood purity and finding only physiologically, mentally, and genetically advanced individuals as partners?"
I even felt sorry for Teyla then, whose authority in the eyes of Atlantis's inhabitants grew. After all, they don't live in caves.
So, as disgusted as I am to think about how and in what capacity the Ancients passed on their genetic code to subsequent generations — since Earthlings got the Ancient gene — the fact that the inoculated gene was degenerating spoke for itself.
Ancient genetic therapy isn't just an "inoculation for development." It's a method of manipulation, of control. The question is, if all Dorandans were given the miracle inoculation upon being accepted as a "younger race," why did Trebal need to undergo initiation? Chaya is a different case; her people never encountered the Ancients before that.
But the Dorandans had known the Lantians for a long time by the start of the war — a younger race, all that.
I smell a little unpleasant secret in all these eugenic rituals. Either the Lantians didn't inoculate everyone in the first place, and it's logical that the inoculated, mixing with the non-inoculated, weakened the gene and required a new inoculation. Or the offspring of two inoculated people actually doesn't inherit the parents' enhanced genetics that often.
Again, take Trebal. Her father is a Lantian, a carrier of the natural gene. The girl is sure her mother was a gene carrier. Then why did she herself need an inoculation? Why did she need the "boost" for training? She should have been more developed than an ordinary Dorandan. Couldn't she have absorbed knowledge without the chemicals?
Unfortunately, there's no answer to this question.
And what's available to us in the Atlantis database reeks of some censored version of a scientific report meant for idiots. No, seriously, it's three paragraphs long, without formulas. Just text in the style of "it works like this and is needed for that."
I don't like all this genetic stuff. I don't like that the Lantians, barely encountering the Salumai, who dabbled in genetics and augmentics, had a falling out with them and then blocked their Gate. I don't like that the Wraith arrived next. I don't like that, contrary to my expectations, Larrin could swear that the Nomads never broke into the lab and aren't interested in cybernetics. On Salumay, they were only interested in metals, technology, and food supplies in the warehouses. They didn't find the latter, just like they didn't find the secret bunker.
Ihaar partly confirms her words — in his opinion, Nomad scanners are only good for scaring photons. Compared to Lantian scanners (and it's thanks to them that we found that lab), the Nomads see nothing with their devices.
But, one way or another, Larrin and several people from her people have something interesting. It's called the "recessive Ancient gene."
There are dominant genes — those that work in the body and form our body, health, skin color, hair, eyes, etc. And there are suppressed, recessive genes. That just are.
And making a recessive Ancient gene dominant, working like ours, is very difficult. Naturally — almost impossible, at least for the carrier. In a future generation — yes, maybe. We remember the condition.
According to Celise's theory, and Chaya agrees with her, the Earthlings didn't actually inoculate each other with the Ancient gene when they found themselves in Atlantis, cut off from the Milky Way. They used some kind of genetic procedures to activate the recessive genes.
She based her conclusion on the characteristics of the dominant and recessive Ancient genes. So, the recessive one is difficult to detect even with Ancient medical technology. Especially if you don't know where it's hidden in its entirety. Because the damn thing is scattered throughout the entire DNA chain. If you don't know what it looks like as a whole, each part just looks like genetic junk. Like an appendix in the body. "Well, if it's there, it must be important; let's figure out what for."
"Otherwise, if they really found a way, like a special retrovirus, to inoculate the gene in people, then they're smarter than me," Celise summarized. And she asked my permission to start researching this.
If the Ancient genetic therapy only worked on children and only with at least some basic physiological data, then from the series I remembered that the Earth medic did inoculate the gene. Though... he apparently had a couple of years to work on it and a lifetime of medical practice, so... That's how I calmed the girl down, telling her she still had her whole career ahead of her.
The procedure for Larrin's "activation" was... non-trivial. Developing an actual retrovirus to activate the gene, even for Celise or Chaya, would take months. And the Nomads on Ermen needed our help now. No, it wasn't a complete deception or anything...
We honestly told Larrin that we would apply the Ancient genetic therapy for children to her. There was a theory that such a jolt could awaken her gene and potentially make it stronger.
We activated it.
But we didn't make it stronger.
The good thing is that, in practice, this therapy shouldn't harm the body if it doesn't work. Kirik and Alvar can confirm.
But I'm not planning to "activate" anyone else besides Larrin at the moment. Yes, it's tempting to spend the time and give genetic therapy to all the Nomads on Ermen, thinking, "Well, what if?"
But thanks to Celise, we've become wiser. And we won't waste our limited resources on such foolishness.
Yes, there are people among the Nomads on Ermen carrying the dormant gene. There are people with some genetic markers needed for successful gene implantation. Kirik and Alvar, for example, didn't have them at all, which is probably why the therapy didn't work.
But I wasn't going to create a bunch of "Ancients" from the nominally loyal Nomads. I have enough nominally loyal Dorandans who have the gene but might not join us anyway. Why create problems for myself?
Chaya, who agreed to Larrin's "activation," proposed a hypothesis based on her own development surrounded by Ancient technology — that the frequency of its use could help one work with it more comfortably. According to Celise's feelings, this is exactly the case.
The gene won't get stronger, of course, but at least using the technology will develop "familiarity" skills. It's like driving a car — skill comes with experience.
Let's hope that Larrin, too, will eventually stop flinching at things that only turn on in her hands. But she's scared of the Ares like fire. Just like Trebal. Chaya diplomatically preferred not to sacrifice her self-esteem, saying, "I'm a scientist, not a starship commander."
In general, the problem isn't absolute — if you don't control the ship mentally. For me, it's easier to do it by force of thought because buttons and equipment are difficult (so far, I hope). But commanding without getting out of the chair — yes, that's easy.
Larrin, though... In principle, she and the future crew of the Ares, assembled from technicians, can also operate the starship using control panels throughout the ship. But so far no one, including me, has dared to sit in the command chair. Because, if the schematics are to be believed — and we have no reason to think they're deceiving us — the chair on this ship is exactly the same as the one on Atlantis.
Meaning it's not a "stripped-down" version like on the Hippaforalkus. From it, you can control almost all the ship's systems — if you have the required gene strength. I do. For the others, it's nothing more than the sole means of launching homing projectiles, the battleship's main firepower.
That said, the Ares is equipped with experimental impulse cannons of the latest generation. And its super-reactors are more powerful, giving the weapons, shields, and engines more power. Consequently, even without a ZPM, it's an order of magnitude stronger than the Hippaforalkus.
In short, in all this genetic chaos — without specialized knowledge and microscopic examination — you could dig around for days and months on end, building all sorts of wildest hypotheses.
I preferred not to participate further in these scientific debates, so as not to generate false guesses. Let Celise run her hundred or five hundred experiments, build models, rule out the obviously stupid assumptions — the ones I'm already producing against the backdrop of my subconscious aversion to the Lanteans — and then we'll talk.
For now, we have a simpler and more interesting task.
"Mikhail," Kirik's voice came through the communicator earpiece. "The Gate is activating from the other side."
"Attention," I announced on the general channel, checking my Alash one more time. For this mission, we needed the simplest of deadly weapons. "We have guests. Alvar, Ihaar, is everything ready?"
"We can activate the device any time," the chief engineer assured me. "Just remember, we'll have only ten, maybe fifteen, minutes before we need to turn off the jammer. During that time, we'll have no radio contact and energy weapons won't work."
"A lousy idea," Larrin shook her head, holstering the frequency gun on her thigh. Swinging the Alash, dangling from its strap across her back, she pulled the bolt, chambering a round. "And the weapon's lousy too."
The latter was the Nomads' collective opinion. They claimed to be more accustomed to the frequency guns. And the fact that they had only one such weapon — a single pistol — per hundred colonists was supposedly "a different matter." Still, I wasn't forcing anyone. If they didn't want to standardize on our caliber firearms for self-defense, that was their choice.
They apparently found it easier to handle types of firearms more familiar and common in the galaxy: Satedan or Genii. The latter is only called that by those who know its origin — to most of the galaxy, they're just farmers.
But Satedan... that's essentially a relic.
It's well known in the galaxy that Sateda was one of the last worlds — before Ermen — that the Wraiths scoured, sparing almost no one. Rumors circulate across various worlds that the proud and warlike Satedans survived after all, but in reality... the Nomads, for example, don't know any such people.
And frankly, I don't really care about the Satedans in general. As I recall, the series didn't have many good people from among them.
But one specific Satedan — Ronon Dex — does interest me. However, that meeting seems to be taking its time.
"The hyper-tunnel is established," Kirik continued informing us. "Darts: two, three, five. Five darts and a contingent of about fifty Wraiths have passed through the Gate. They're heading your way. Ten squads of four soldiers and one commander or Wraith hunter each. Standard armament."
"Confirmed," Ihaar reported. "The darts have crossed the center of the location. Enemy infantry is also in the kill zone."
Unlike Kirik and his squad, the chief engineer was using not just optical surveillance equipment but also Lantean technology.
"Don't you think we're a bit undermanned to deal with such a horde?" Larrin hissed, giving me a reproachful look. "Misha, if any of my people die just because you don't have a backup plan..."
"We need to prepare for battle," Teyla said, shifting toward the left flank of the old wall of the destroyed house we were hiding behind.
"It's all accounted for," I assured Larrin, checking that my personal shield was in place and the Ermen grenades were ready.
The drawn-out, howling sounds of the incoming darts were already audible in the air. Something in my soul went still at the sound, my hands starting to sweat... That's normal, considering we were clearly visible on the darts' scanners.
Twelve people next to an active medallion-transmitter designed to track people with the Ancient gene. No wonder that as soon as the darts detected our presence and numbers, they called in infantry in addition to the fighters.
In the night's darkness, the activated gathering beams of the Wraith fighters were clearly visible, advancing toward us.
My mind calculated the situation almost routinely...
"Ihaar, launch," I ordered when there were about twenty meters left to the nearest beam. The scanner clearly showed that the mass of Wraiths was already where we needed them. They were circling, flanking us in case we managed to break out of the collection.
"Activating the EMP generator," Ihaar warned.
The airwaves went silent immediately. Not even static remained.
The sounds of the Wraith fighters vanished, their gathering beams dissolved. Only the sounds of the darts falling from a height of fifty meters remained — destined to slam into the ground far behind our position.
And so, Operation "Catch as Many Wraiths as Possible" had begun.