View of the Ancient outpost on the planet Taranis.
"Ugly view," Kirik said, not mincing words, looking at the picture opening from the control room. "If the wraiths come, they won't be saved. Their gate is a staging ground for invasion."
"Not so loud," Teyla reminded him gently about good manners, approaching him. "We are guests. Did you forget?"
"No," the fugitive cast another glance at the Taranis landscapes, then looked at the Athosian. "But that doesn't change the fact that these people will die as soon as the wraiths decide to drop by. Too much open space near the gate. A whole squadron of 'arrows' will pass here."
View from the control room of the Ancient outpost on Taranis.
Teyla, feeling a heavy gaze on her, looked at the nearest guard. He had undoubtedly heard what the former fugitive had said. From his expression, it didn't require any mental effort to understand – this guy would now watch them twice as closely.
"In childhood, I heard many stories about fugitives," Teyla said quietly. "The people who shared them always portrayed you as heroes, fighters for people's freedom, wraith hunters..."
"And they didn't lie," Kirik said.
"True," Teyla gave him a disapproving look. "It's a shame the fairy tales didn't say a word about you having not an ounce of tact."
"Look what they've done to the control room," the former fugitive nodded towards the numerous Taranian mechanisms attached to the walls and placed in every corner of the control room. "I saw the shock in Chaya's eyes when she saw what they had done to the Ancestors' instruments."
Control room of the outpost on Taranis.
"More respect for someone else's home," Teyla advised. "These people were just trying to understand the Ancestors' technology. Something like this can happen in any corner of the galaxy. And it doesn't make them any less intelligent or capable than us."
Kirik shook his head.
"It's not about respect here," he pointed out the window. "This is basic tactics. Their gate is located in an open area. Too much open space and unprotected buildings. If the 'arrows'..."
"Speak quieter," Teyla made "scary eyes." "We came here to negotiate with these people, not to scare them."
"And Michael also asked to assess and make recommendations for the defense of these people," the former fugitive reminded her. "Which is what I'm doing, actually. One hit through the gate, and these people will become food for the wraiths..."
Teyla was embarrassed by how loudly it was said. The people in the outpost's control room no longer hesitated to cast unmistakably irritated and suspicious glances at them.
"If you want to help, do it silently," Teyla advised. "Negotiations are difficult enough as it is..."
"I don't see any negotiations here at all," Kirik snorted. "These people have what we need. And what they are incapable of using. Why keep such a thing with them?"
"I think that's exactly what Chaya and Misha are trying to prove to them," Emagan said quietly, looking at the control panels ruthlessly exposed by the Taranis people. The abundance of wires and local devices connected to the Ancestors' technology commanded respect for the inquisitive minds of the Taranis people. But, here's the catch... According to Chaya, they only made things worse.
"Chancellor Leikos," Chaya tried to maintain politeness. "I'm not trying to scare you or pressure you..."
"But that's exactly what you're doing, pointing out that we're ruining your technology," the gray-haired man sitting at the table opposite looked her directly in the eyes without fear. "You know, my people had a different opinion about the Ancestors. And now, you show up, saying that we've brought the outpost to a desperate state..."
Chancellor Leikos's apartment.
Chaya used breathing exercises to calm down a bit. It didn't help much.
"Let me explain something to you," she said with a strained smile.
"Try," the chancellor leaned back in his chair and exchanged a quick glance with the guard.
"You have very ascetic lighting in this room," Chaya noted. "Doesn't that bother you?"
"Yes, the builders of this place didn't bother with better lighting," the leader of the Taranis people admitted, pointing to a vertical lamp in the corner of the room. The column, shining with white light, was draped with a red curtain. There was too much red decor here in general. "We had to install additional lights," he spread his hands, indicating two characteristic floor lamps by the wall behind him. "Plus, keep the entrance door open."
"Let's say you keep the door open because when you opened this room, you damaged the locking mechanism," Chaya explained, pointing to the crystals on the side panel that were not lit from within. "And the lighting problem is because when you hung this beautiful curtain," she pointed to the fabric behind the chancellor, "so that the light of the Taranis star wouldn't interfere with your work, you damaged the power cables for the internal lighting of this warehouse hidden in the walls. The overlays on the wall, which you took for decorative elements, are decorative covers for cable channels for easy access to the power buses running through the room. According to the electrification standards for such rooms, lighting wiring runs next to them, which your technicians drilled into. I think this happened before you managed to start the geothermal generator from the control room. Otherwise, it would have led to the death of the technicians and a fire in the room."
"Warehouse?" the chancellor echoed.
"Yes, this room is a warehouse," Chaya explained. "That's why there's only one main," she pointed to the vertical column of light, "and a few additional light sources. When they work, it's enough to see everything necessary here."
"And... the window behind me? Do you put a window in every warehouse?" the chancellor continued to press.
"There are half as many additional light sources here as required for such an area," Chaya explained. "This is done out of simple economy. The outpost on Taranis was built in the final years of the war, when we lacked resources. Taranis is rich in minerals, which my people extracted from the caldera of the supervolcano where this outpost was built."
"Here you go again," Leikos said irritably. "We've lived in this place for a long time! And we know nothing about any volcanoes!"
"You would know if you understood what was written on the monitors in the control room!" Chaya said emphatically. "This entire complex is built on a supervolcano only because the super-strong rock that sealed the vent after the last eruption is dense and stable enough for tunneling and construction. Moreover, extracting the necessary materials directly from the mantle made building mines unnecessary."
"Mines," the chancellor chuckled. "Dear Chaya, we have several mines in settlements far from here. And they are deep and extensive enough. Which proves the absence of any supervolcanoes. And yes, we understand what volcanoes are. There are several on the planet. The outpost is located in a mountain, not in a volcano. So don't try to confuse us."
I really wanted to hit the blessed man in his blindness. But the Proculucian understood that this was not a solution. At least not now.
"Your mines are located more than two hundred kilometers from the outpost, outside the supervolcano. The rock is thicker there, and the magma is not so close to the Earth's crust. That's why you haven't encountered..."
"Do you want to impress me by pretending to know something you can't possibly know?" the chancellor chuckled. "My chief scientist, Norina Pyro, has already informed me that you accessed our equipment. That's where you got the information."
"I accessed the outpost's equipment," Chaya clarified.
"And you did it without permission," the chancellor reminded her.
"Because I saw a warning about rising pressure in the magma chamber," the girl said.
"Ah, those flashing symbols on the screens," the chancellor chuckled. "Our scientists have already figured out that it's just a screensaver on inactive monitors."
Inside, the girl wanted to scream. Very loudly, very loudly...
"All outpost systems are working," she said softly.
"But you said just half an hour ago that it wasn't so," the chancellor continued to smile. "Something about an emergency system and all that..."
Chaya closed her eyes, summoning the last of her patience. One part of her soul strongly wished that the agreement would still be reached. The other, the largest part, advocated for the contract not to happen and for this place to explode to all the Orai.
"When you managed to start the outpost systems..." she began.
"Ah, so now we're not so primitive that we can't manage the Ancestors' systems we inherited?" the chancellor taunted her.
"Turning on even the most complex equipment is no trouble," Chaya said with irritation. "Especially since the necessary buttons were probably just highlighted or blinking. And since there was no genetic fingerprint input control system installed here, even wraiths or non-sentient animals could have done it!"
A shadow crossed the chancellor's face.
"You insult us, Chaya!" he said in a warning tone.
"You're ruining technologies that are over ten thousand years old!" the girl hissed. "And if you continue to treat what you inherited so carelessly, your planet will simply cease to be habitable! Do you want that?!"
A threat flashed in the chancellor's eyes.
"You and your friends won't like what I want," he warned.
"The complex extends many levels down," a young blonde woman announced, touching a side panel. The elevator doors opened, and she made an inviting gesture.
Young... No, the term "youthful" is more appropriate here. Because tons of makeup on her face and an ill-fitting evening dress were much more suited for visiting a restaurant or a party. But not for visiting the secret corners of an ancient outpost.
"After the ladies," I put on a smile.
"You are so gallant, Mikhail," she gave me a smile. "We really should talk alone. I so want to learn more about your world and your customs. And," she tried to wink at me. I almost gagged. "About you personally."
The two guards standing by the far wall of the elevator exchanged meaningful glances when Norina Pyro left the cabin first.
At the same time, the lady didn't forget to sway her hips, drawing attention to her figure.
"God, kill me!" the thought flashed.
Taranis's leading scientist Norana Pyro.
I'm not a sexist, not a chauvinist, and I don't have a club card for the "Blue Oyster" bar. I love women. But damn it! How old is this Norana?! Forty? Fifty?!
Even makeup doesn't save her from mimic wrinkles and all that. Madame is clearly trying to flirt and play coy with me. At the same time, I don't think she has problems with attention from the opposite sex. But... Well, I'm not a gerontophile, not at all!
Yes, I'm in a young body, and my brain is not at all pubescent. But I have no desire to woo her. And it's not even about her age... Okay, I went too far – she doesn't look older than forty. That is, approximately my peer from my past life. But even then, I wasn't inclined to tie myself to anything other than work relationships with women who, at their conditional forty, try to look like youngsters.
How this woman became the leading scientist of Taranis, only the Ascended know. But there are only two options here: either through her bed (and then it explains the barbaric approach to studying Lantian technologies), or she's trying to play dumb. Well, a known female tactic: I can open a jar of pickles myself, but I'll pretend I can't, let a man do it, because then he'll feel strong, and therefore, more compliant to what I actually need.
I know, I've been through it. Even Marina didn't shy away from such tricks. True, she did it when she didn't want to take the car to the service herself or dust the shelves.
For about five minutes, we walked through corridors, the silence of which was broken only by the clatter of Norana's heels (heels, damn it!) and her empty babbling about how the complex was discovered, how much time was spent on its development, and how great it was that we arrived, because we could teach them everything… and other blah-blah-blah.
From what she said, the following can be highlighted: the Taranians found the complex some time ago thanks to a network of tunnels they stumbled upon. Their society is quite developed, I think, at the level of the early twentieth century, adjusted for the realities of space. Before that, they did not use the stargates, as they were installed on a platform in front of the outpost, and the Taranians knew nothing about them. However, among these people, there were entire villages of those who came through the gates to Tarannis, fleeing from the Wraiths. For a long time, the locals believed that the Wraiths were on their planet, but after the discovery of the outpost, everything fell into place.
The Wraiths do not fly here, but this clearly cannot last forever. Especially after the Taranians activated the outpost systems.
"Some time ago, we discovered a Wraith hive ship flying nearby," Norana said. "By then, we had figured out how to control the energy defenses, and the Chancellor ordered it activated. We haven't heard anything from them since."
"Well, I'll be," I said with a strained smile. "You found it yourselves?"
"We saw the markings on one of the screens," Norana explained, pointing to a passage at a crossroads of corridors. "We go to the right."
Chaya had already found out that the locals had launched the outpost and all its systems. Including long-range sensors, like on Atlantis. And they showed them a single Wraith hive ship. Which was allegedly flying towards them.
In reality, it seems that this is the same hive that visited Ermen and destroyed everything there. Then it headed for Sudaria and other planets where they hunted fugitives. It so happened that the planets were within the range of long-range scanners. But it was enough for the locals that it just flew by. The stories of refugees from distant planets played on the fear of the local government more than ever.
And Chancellor Leikos ordered the shields to be strengthened.
The energy source at this outpost is a geothermal generator, just like on Athos. It draws energy from the planet's depths. In theory, it is simply inexhaustible – as long as the mantle and core have not cooled, the generator will receive energy.
It's just that the shields are strengthened. More energy is needed. And the generator is working like crazy. Which affects the pressure in the magma chamber…
It was roughly the same in the known events with the members of the expedition from Atlantis. Only they discovered the Taranians a year after they activated the shields. I suspect that the circumstances under which this happened are the same for the events of the series and for us. It's just that the Earthlings in their "universe" did not stumble upon Alvar, Ermen, and the like. The cause-and-effect relationship of events is simply broken.
But this is just for emphasis. You just need to understand that it is unlikely that the events that happened in the series will unfold with us in the same way as with the Earthlings. Somewhere we will manage to "snatch the prize," and somewhere we will face failures.
However, the current situation on Taranis is not as sad as it was when they met the Earthlings. The latter came to Taranis in the second year of the expedition, when the Taranians had already lived under a reinforced shield for a long time. Eventually, this provoked a supervolcano eruption, the destruction of the outpost, and the evacuation of the Taranians.
We arrived long before that. And there is a chance to fix everything. But there is a suspicion that we may not succeed. Because in the known events, only the supervolcano eruption convinced the paranoid chancellor that he was not being deceived and taken advantage of…
"And here's the hangar," Norana smiled, running her hand over the control panel of the entrance door. "I'm sure you'll appreciate what's inside."
"I don't doubt it," I assured her, following her.
We found ourselves on a viewing platform, from which a simple stepped staircase led to the left, disappearing into the darkness of the huge room that opened before us.
As Chaya told me after finding the records in the database, the Ancients stumbled upon Tarannis at the very end of the war. Their resources were running out. She assumed, and now I can confirm it in practice, that the Ancients, though not built from dirt and sticks, built this complex with minimal technical saturation. High technologies – only the necessary ones, nothing more. And everything that could be replaced with much simpler things, like a regular elevator, like a transporter, stairs instead of a transporter, and so on, was replaced. Most likely, they no longer had enough resources for high-tech facilities. After all, the Taranian outpost was built at the end of the war.
The girl, as the most obvious representative of the Ancients, who could have fooled the local ruler – after all, the Taranians respected the Ancients (like most people in the galaxy) – went to negotiate. I, on the other hand, began to inspect the surroundings.
I needed to understand what else was noteworthy in the outpost, besides what I already knew. And at the negotiations… I think Chaya, who is more knowledgeable in this matter, will be able to handle it better.
Lighting fixtures began to light up in the ceiling and on the walls. So powerful that they dispelled the darkness in the huge room we were now looking at.
And at what was in it.
"We believe that this," Norana's face showed indescribable joy, "is a military ship of the Ancestors."
The view from the hangar of the Ancient battleship.
I looked at the battle-worn Ancient battleship, then smiled politely.
Suddenly, one of the guards' radios crackled. He quickly brought it to his ear like a mobile phone, listened to something, and, looking at us, said:
"The Chancellor demands that you leave Tarannis. Immediately."
Norana looked at me with a surprised glance.
And I… I really wanted to talk to Chaya and find out the details of their meeting with Chancellor Leikos.