Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC Part 45
🕑 Added 2020-03-17 06:00:52 +0000 UTC“Where are we going next?” Dawn asked as she pulled her attention off the droids that Alanna and Ahsoka were working on reformatting and looked at the pyramid shaped portal device Myst was fiddling with.
“Let me guess, you’re tired of shopping for books with Hermione?” Myst asked with amusement as he adjusted the coordinates on the portal device.
Dawn playfully flipped Myst off. “It wouldn’t have been so bad if you hadn’t told her that we needed a ‘complete’ library and that I had an entire vault in my coin purse.”
“You’re the one that volunteered,” Myst teased then winced as he got a precognitive flash of a set of portal coordinates and a vision of a familiar crew dying when an equally familiar alien base flooded as its shields failed.
“What did you see?” Dawn asked, having felt the change in his emotions.
“I think I just found our next target,” Myst replied as he worked on setting the coordinates. “Hopefully we’re not too late,” he muttered as he pointed the portal device toward the wall and pushed the button, hoping he had enough time to prevent the city from being flooded. He sighed in relief when the portal opened and revealed a perfectly dry control room. “Looks like we have enough time to fix things.”
“Where are we going?” Alanna asked as she walked over with Sabrina.
“Atlantis,” Myst replied as he walked through the portal and glanced around the room as the lights scattered around the room activated and the city’s control center came to life for the first time in 10,000 years. He ran up the steps and over to the computer console as Dawn, Sabrina and Alanna followed through the portal.
“Where are we?” Alanna asked as she glanced around the control room curiously.
“We’re a couple of miles underwater,” Myst replied absently as he cheated and used both his precognition and his ability to read any language to search through the Atlantean database for the commands he needed to bring the city to the surface before the shield failed and flooded the city. “Okay, that should do it,” he muttered as he activated the sequence of commands that should cause Atlantis to rise to the ocean’s surface.
“Do what?” Sabrina asked as she studied the large metal ring mounted on the floor.
“That should have caused Atlantis to rise to the surface,” Myst grumbled as he tried to figure out how to pull up a damage report and figure out which one out of the hundreds available was the one he wanted.
“How long has the city been underwater?” Alanna asked as she glanced at the portal that led back to the ship, examining it with the force.
“10,000 years, give or take...” Myst trailed off as he opened his upgrade menu and noticed the sheer amount of damage the ship had suffered over the years. “Shit, plan B.” He poured mana into ‘upgrading’ the condition of the systems required to bring the city sized ship to the surface.
Dawn giggled as a small wave of mana washed over her. “Let me guess, something broke?”
“Pretty much.” Myst grinned as the ship lurched and started rising to the surface at a faster rate. “That should keep the shields from collapsing and flooding the city.”
Sabrina grinned as she got a vision of the Stargate expedition arriving and being utterly shocked by the force adepts running around. “We have about eight hours to fix the city before Stargate command dials the gate and sends a team through.”
“So much for stealing the city,” Dawn said and pouted.
“Stargate command?” Alanna asked as she glanced between Sabrina and Myst.
“They’re a group of humans that are basically trying to protect the galaxy while they explore it.” Myst grabbed the console as the city reached the surface and it felt like someone slammed the breaks on an elevator. “That’s unpleasant. Someone remind me to fix the inertia compensation systems first next time.”
“At least we didn’t have any giant fish chasing us,” Alanna said as several metal shutters opened on the second floor, letting in fresh ocean air and sunlight. “Now what?”
“Now I work on fixing the city before the Stargate team gets here,” Myst said as he shut down the shield and brought up a damage summary on the computer, less than pleased by the extent of the damage. ‘Janus was right, swapping the ZPMs would have helped.’
Sabrina grinned as she flew up to the second floor landing and looked at the ocean. “While you’re working on repairing the city, I’m going to collect the children.”
“Why?” Myst asked, sensing Sabrina’s amusement.
“Because I want to troll people,” Sabrina replied with a grin as she gestured toward the small dead tree in a planter sitting against one of the metal walls. “This place looks abandoned. If we let the Stargate team know we just got here, they’ll want to take over. On the other hand, if we swap out the plants and get the girls settled, we can probably convince the Stargate team that we’re Atlanteans, especially if we’re using it as a training base for force powers.”
“We’ll have to ditch the lightsabers and call it psionics,” Myst suggested, knowing someone would call bullshit if they saw a lightsaber. “We should probably come up with outfits that don’t scream 20th century Earth too.”
“I’m thinking shorts and mostly see through silk shirts,” Dawn suggested.
“Why see through?” Alanna asked.
“Because we want the Stargate team too distracted to think straight,” Dawn replied with an evil grin.
“I don’t have any objections to trolling people,” Myst replied with amusement as he checked the amount of mana he’d have to spend to repair the city’s various systems.
“Pockets and breast support for the girls should do for a start,” Dawn said, thinking of the idiotic Starfleet uniforms that didn’t have pockets. “I’ll grab the hat box and ask Snips for help. I’m sure she knows some very distracting styles, considering the way she dresses.”
Myst watched Dawn leave with a spring to her steps then turned to look at Sabrina. “Just to be safe, make sure she doesn’t go too far off the rails.”
“I’ll try,” Sabrina replied with amusement, fairly sure they’d be able to come up with something that looked good while still being practical. “If we’re going to pull this off, at least some of the children will have to learn Atlantean.”
“Not a problem, I’ll give everyone a copy of the Altaran language when I give them the ability to read English.” He wasn’t a fan of some of the darker uses he could put his telepathy to, but the ability to give people skills was useful.
“That works,” Sabrina agreed as she floated back down to the ground and headed toward the portal to keep an eye on Dawn and talk to the force using children.
“What do you want me to do?” Alanna asked, a touch surprised at the lengths her new friends would go to for a prank.
“I could use some help figuring out the best way to power the city,” Myst said thoughtfully as he tried to figure out how to display the condition of the city’s ZPMs.
“I’m not an expert but I can take a look,” Alanna offered, knowing that she had a decent amount of experience fixing things and getting xeno systems to work. “How much power do we have and can you find schematics for the ship’s power distribution systems?”
“No idea, I’m guessing fumes,” Myst replied, more than a little annoyed that the computer wasn’t more user friendly. Of course, the more realistic side of him wasn’t all that surprised considering the sheer size of the Altarans database and the lack of AI.
“I don’t have a solid frame of reference for their mathematics, but going by computer cycles… I’d say we have enough power to run the city on minimal power for a few months,” Alanna said as Myst tapped away at the computer. “Or if I could read the language.”
“Sorry, let me fix that,” Myst replied as he carefully reached out with his telepathy and gave her a copy of the Ancient language so that she could help him with the computers. “That should help.”
Alanna blinked as the words on the screen suddenly made sense. “Thanks.” She tapped away at the holographic display. “This would be a lot easier if they had some decent AIs. I’m guessing whoever these people were they had perfect memories and calculators built in, otherwise I can’t see why they would develop their computer system this way.”
“Most likely,” Myst agreed. “They managed to create a multi galaxy wide network of wormholes they used to move from planet to planet in addition to having ships that can casually fly between galaxies.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Alanna said. “I’m surprised they even needed computers with minds like that.”
“Even with perfect memories, you still need to share information. Eventually they did decide to evolve into energy beings and skip reality altogether,” Myst offered.
“We do something similar, but we generally wait until we die to do it,” Alanna said. “Doing it in advance doesn’t seem all that bright. Where’s the fun?”
“They were very bright, just not particularly creative when it came to combat or wise,” Myst replied, thinking about the sheer amount of technology they left scattered around for unethical people to find.
“I’ll take your word for it. Can we get a couple of droids to compensate for their bizarre programming style?” she asked as she slowly made her way through the near endless list of subsystems.
“I don’t see why not, just stuff them through the portal. We’ll have to figure out how to keep them charged and everything,” Myst said thoughtfully.
“That’s easy, we have portable fusion generators for that,” she waved it off.
Myst drummed his fingers on the console as he considered their options before realizing he was being stubborn. ‘Screw it, even if we run out of power, we’re not underwater.’ Bringing up a handful of mana he concentrated on age related breakdowns and fed it to the city, upgrading the long lasting material to something closer to timeless.
Alanna shivered as the mana washed over her. “Several secondary systems have just come online, which is great but is going to reduce our run time by a bit.”
“Then how about…” Myst pulled up more power and concentrated on the efficiency of the solar collection and power reclamation systems.
Alanna wiggled a little, cheeks red. “Ahem, yeah the drain has dropped by over a third, putting us right back where we started.”
“Let’s go with the Tim Taylor model,” Myst decided as he paced back and forth, leaking mana into the frame of the city.
“Tim Taylor?” Alanna asked, using her jedi training to not respond to what felt like a full body massage with a very happy ending.
“More power!” Myst declared and slammed almost enough mana to upgrade a planet into Atlantis, upgrading the city’s condition from ‘needs more pylons’ to ‘better than new.’
Alanna collapsed onto the floor, moaning loudly.
Myst glanced down at the sweaty and sticky jedi. “Maybe I should have warned you first…”
0o0o0
“Children?” Doctor McKay blurted as he stared at the screen in disbelief, surprised to find a number of teenagers standing behind consoles when he’d been expecting ruins or an empty base, as the Asgard had lost contact with the Ancients thousands of years ago. “They don’t look like advanced aliens.”
“What are they supposed to look like?” Weir asked as she studied the teenager’s clothes, more than a little surprised that the teenagers were wearing off white shorts with pockets and brightly colored long sleeved silk shirts that were practically see-through.
“Uniforms?” McKay asked, thinking about the reports he’d read about the ancient they’d found under the ice.
“If you ignore the colors, they’re wearing identical clothes,” Daniel pointed out. “Can you turn the volume up, they’re saying something.”
“Yes,” one of the techs replied as he turned the volume up on the speakers.
“What are they saying?” Jack asked as he listened to the language that he couldn’t quite understand but was familiar with, thanks to his experience with the ancient library he’d gotten downloaded into his head.
“They’re asking if we can hear them,” Daniel said, a touch surprised to find people speaking Ancient rather than a derivative language that was a corruption of the original dialect.
“In that case, ask for permission to send a team,” Jack said, mentally shifting gears now that he knew the city was occupied.
Daniel reached over and pushed the button on the keyboard that activated the speakers on the MALP. “We can hear you, we’re peaceful explorers. Can we send a small team through the gate to trade information?” he asked, hoping they didn’t just shut the gate down or tell them to leave them alone.
“Of course,” Sabrina replied in Ancient. “We’d thought the gate on your world was buried, we’d love to trade stories.”
“Any luck?” Jack asked, only catching a couple of words here and there thanks to his experience with the Ancient database.
“They’re willing to allow a small group to come through the gate,” Daniel explained in English.
“Ask if they can send you back,” Jack said, seeing no point in sending Daniel if he couldn’t get back.
“Can you provide the power to send us home afterwards?” he asked in Ancient, hoping they could.
“Of course,” Sabrina assured him, knowing Myst and Alanna were working on their power issues.
“They said they can send us home!” Daniel said excitedly.
“Grab your bag, I know you packed one.” Jack turned to look at Weir then glanced at Sheppard. “Sheppard, you’ll be going with Weir and Daniel, make sure Daniel comes back.”
Weir looked slightly annoyed at that, before realizing the general was concerned his friend might wander off and not that he didn’t want her to return.
Daniel reached down and grabbed his travel bag from where he’d set it out of the way. “I’m good.”
“Sir?” Colonel Sumner asked. “Sheppard is a liability.”
Jack gave Daniel an amused look then turned to look at Colonel Summer. “He’s also related to the ancients, diplomatic, and unwilling to leave people behind, all traits that should come in useful.”
“Yes sir,” Sumner acknowledged with a glare towards Sheppard, less than happy about the situation, but unwilling to argue with O’Neill.
“Doctor McKay, can you avoid offending our hosts?” Weir asked as she looked at the Canadian scientist.
“Yes, of course, I’m surprised you even needed to ask,” McKay replied a touch defensively, unwilling to pass up the chance to see Atlantis.
“In that case, you and Zelenka can come with me.” Weir turned to look at Daniel. “Ask if five people is acceptable.”
“Five?” Colonel Sumner asked, annoyed at the idea of them going without a proper escort. “I should be there.”
Weir shook her head, seeing no point in having Sumner there for a diplomatic meeting considering his personality. “It’s just a meet and greet, Colonel.”
“What if they’re hostile?” Sumner demanded.
“If they’re hostile, your presence won’t help,” Jack said, wondering if the Colonel had actually read the information they’d written up about the Ancients and the power they wielded.
“We have five people, a linguist, a diplomat, two scientists and a guard, is that acceptable?” Daniel asked in Ancient.
“Let me guess, your scientists tend to wander off and get into trouble?” Sabrina asked with amusement.
“They also occasionally forget to eat,” Daniel replied with amusement, thinking about Carter’s tendency to get distracted in her lab as well as his own.
“That’s fine, it’ll be nice to see some new faces around here.” Sabrina was looking forward to seeing the group’s reaction to the force users and the city.
“They’re fine with five people,” Daniel said, glad that he was the only one that could speak ancient fluently, as it meant that Jack had to let him go.
“Carter is going to be annoyed that she missed this,” Jack said, hoping he wasn’t sending the group into a trap.
“I’ll try to get some more ZPMs and enough data to keep her busy,” Daniel assured him as he headed for the gate.
Jack turned to look at Sheppard. “I’m counting on you to bring them back.”
“Aye sir,” Sheppard replied with a salute, before he headed for the gate.
Sabrina smiled at the small group as they walked out of the stargate. “Welcome to Atlantis,” she said in Ancient, curious how long it would take before people realized they weren’t ancients.
“Thank you,” Daniel replied, as he studied the young lady in front of him, a touch surprised that she had blue hair, which almost distracted from her shirt which was definitely from an advanced civilization as he was pretty sure no one else could make clothing out of what resembled little more than cobwebs in the sunlight streaming through the windows above. “Do you know how the ancients lost contact with Earth?”
“Between the decreasing population and the plague a number of places went silent. It was a dark time in our history and that was generations ago, so I doubt anyone knows the answer today, though it may have been written down somewhere.” Sabrina gestured toward the balcony, making sure to swing her upper body a little more than necessary, drawing the terrans’ eyes despite their best efforts to ignore it. “You should head to the balcony and take a look at the city, it’s rather impressive and I like to show it off.”
“What are they saying?” Weir asked as the stargate shut down behind them, wishing she knew Ancient and that they wore something a bit thicker or were a bit less perky.
“She said we should look at the city,” Daniel said, trying to hold down a blush as he headed for the stairs that led to the balcony she’d pointed toward, eager to turn his attention towards the city and not the scantily dressed young woman who could possibly read his mind.
“Shouldn’t there be more adults around?” McKay asked as he glanced around the room, curious why the population tended more than a little to school ages.
Zelenka followed the rest of the group up the stairs. “Oh my,” he said in astonishment as he walked out onto the balcony and saw the city.
“Impressive isn’t it?” Sabrina asked in Ancient as she followed the group onto the balcony.
“Yes,” Daniel agreed. “I have so many questions.”
“What do you want to know first?” Sabrina asked, curious how long she could keep her prank up without actually lying.
“How many Ancients are left?” Daniel asked.
“Not everyone returned to Earth, many left for distant worlds or secluded themselves and went into cryosleep. I don’t believe we’ve taken a census or anything,” Sabrina replied, letting them draw their own conclusions as she leaned back on the railing, copying a pose she’d seen in a car magazine.
“Ask them why they haven't dealt with the Goa'uld yet,” McKay suggested, forcing himself to scan the city below, but unable to keep himself from admiring her from the corner of his eye.
“Is there a reason your people never returned to the Milky Way?” Daniel asked, curious why they’d basically vanished and looking directly into her eyes as much as possible.
“History wasn’t my focus,” Sabrina admitted. “But from what I recall, most of the remaining Altarans who survived the war, went back to Earth because they were tired of fighting the Wraith. Those that remained have been kept busy dealing with them. We really haven’t had the time or people to expand as of yet.”
“Wraith?” Daniel asked warily.
“They’re basically an advanced species with the ability to feed on a person’s life force,” she said with an exaggerated shrug that wasn’t having quite the effect she wanted, as the linguist was now thinking of all the life threatening situations he’d gotten into over his years working with SG1.
“Space vampires,” Daniel muttered, causing McKay to look at him in concern. “How likely are they to attack Atlantis?”
“We’ve only recently returned the city to the surface, so it’s unlikely. Unless of course someone lets them know the city wasn’t destroyed.” Sabrina wanted most of the Wraith dealt with before the Wraith learned that Atlantis hadn’t been destroyed. “Either way, we could hold out against an attack for years with little effort, so you don’t have to worry about being attacked while you’re here.”
“What is she saying?” Weir asked, wishing that she understood the language.
“There are a few Ancients scattered around, but they’re at war with a species of life draining humanoids,” Daniel replied in English.
“Space vampires?” McKay asked in disbelief.
“She didn’t say how they drained people’s lifeforce,” Daniel replied.
Sabrina did her best not to crack up as she listened to the back and forth.
0o0o0
“Is it a bad thing that I can’t tell if the Ancients were sadistic bastards, idiot savants, or just negligent?” Myst asked as he read through the upgrade options for the ancient ascension machine that his power was showing him, looking for a way to stabilize the mutation process so they could enhance people without worrying about their brains leaking out of their ears if they didn’t turn into an energy being by ascending to a higher plane of existence.
“I’m guessing negligent idiot savants that were convinced of their own importance with the occasional sadistic bastard tossed in,” Dawn replied sarcastically, thinking of the dangerous energy creature in a cage that Myst had stuffed into his inventory. “I mean why else would you leave a half ascended energy creature trapped in a lab that anyone can just walk into with a lock that doesn’t stop an eight year old?”
“Yeah, anyone sane would have stuck a password on the cage to keep people from accidentally releasing the creature,” Myst complained as he upgraded the machine so you could enhance people in stages rather than push them all the way towards death or ascension.
Dawn giggled as a wave of mana caressed her skin and tickled her sides. “It might just be a cultural blind spot. For all we know, they locked the stargate so that it could only be dialed from Earth.”
“Except they never mentioned a lockout on the show,” Myst said.
“Everyone also spoke English for some strange unexplainable reason,” Dawn said, thinking of the show he’d telepathically shared with her, “so don’t expect it to match reality in every detail.”
“Point,” Myst admitted. “Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I can certainly see Janus locking the gate so that it couldn’t be dialed from anywhere other than Earth.”
“So they never dialed the gate?” Dawn asked, fairly sure they would have gone back at least once.
“Considering everything else going on and the energy cost, I doubt they bothered. After all, they knew the Wraith were waiting for them.” Myst shrugged. “Either way, that should keep people from killing themselves, unless they tweak things to the maximum setting...” he trailed off as he thought about some of the brilliant idiots in the expedition.
Dawn snickered. “Yeah, exactly.”
“Screw it, I’ll leave a sticky note,” he complained as he pulled a pad of sticky notes and a pen out of his inventory. “Now I just need to track down the communication devices that look like game tables and make sure no one starts a war.”
“Probably for the best. Have you figured out how you’re going to deal with the Ancients trapped on the ships?” Dawn asked.
“The Ancients in stasis seemed reasonable from what I can remember, I’ll probably hand them cupcakes and offer the scientists jobs. The idiots with the broken hyperdrive, on the other hand, can rot until we get everything set up, because the first thing they did after being rescued on the show was kick everyone out of Atlantis.”
“Of course, for all we know, they could be perfectly reasonable,” Dawn joked.
“Yeah, if we want a crazy scientist that badly, we can track down Janus and make a couple of copies, at least he had the decency to hide his dangerous experiments and seemed like a decent human being.”
“Hey, Boss,” a teenage boy said as he ducked into the lab. “Are you done yet, Sabrina wants to introduce you to the crew from Earth.”
“Just about,” Myst replied as he finished writing his warning label and directions on the post it note. “That should do it, let’s go talk to the crew.”
