- - -
POV: Kaela Arden.
I was silent for a moment. "Alright, but I need some assurances."
The acting captain raised an eyebrow. "Name it."
"This belt has a significant number of high-density asteroids. We were planning on setting up a mining and industrial base."
Jill Pearce narrowed her eyes. "I want to know exactly which asteroids you're planning on mining before you start."
I gulped, but decided to be candid. "We discovered an asteroid that was filled with the wrecks of Nietzschean Warships; we are interested in the salvage, but we were under the impression that someone else had put it there. Is that salvage yours?"
Her eyes narrowed even further. "It is."
I nodded. "Unless you're willing to give us access to those wrecks, we'll consider them yours."
The captain tapped her fingers against the table a few times. "Do you know what you will be mining?"
I shook my head. "No. Even then, I am not qualified to negotiate on that subject. You'll have to bring that up with one of my superiors."
The captain nodded. "Understood. Now, tell me about the current state of the galaxy."
I gulped and explained what had happened to the Systems Commonwealth, the Nietzscheans, and how the Goa'uld Empire had taken over. I had to skip over a lot of the Goa'uld History, mainly because a lot of it was unknown to myself as well.
When I had finished. The captain was silent, contemplative. For almost ten full seconds she said nothing. "I suppose it was too much to hope for the Commonwealth to have survived after this long."
I shrugged. "It is likely that individual warships, such as yourself, have survived, but most of them are likely damaged beyond repair or trapped."
The captain let out a deep breath before standing up. "I'll see you out. Contact me again when your superiors are ready to negotiate."
I nodded and we were escorted out of the ship and back to our Tel'tak. I took a seat, and nodded to Re'vok to take off. Like that, the ship lifted off. Moments after we were out of the hangar, the cloak re-activated.
I felt the tension leave me as I spoke. "Activate the subspace transmitter."
Within moments, the hologram showing Elder James activated. He nodded at me once. "Report."
I nodded back. "We made contact with acting captain Jill Pearce. She seemed to be sane, though all of the vessel's crew were… Well, I'm pretty sure they are androids. The Captain was cordial enough. My suit camera was active, so you'll have the opportunity to examine the meeting yourself once we land."
Re'vok interrupted before the Elder could reply. "I can confirm. At least according to the ship's sensors, none of the crew were biological."
The Elder was silent for several moments. "Understood. You are clear to return for debriefing."
The Elder nodded once, and the hologram disappeared and I took another deep breath. To say that dealing with a possibly insane AI was exhausting was an understatement. While this certainly hadn't been the best case scenario, the whole thing could have been so much worse.
I nodded once to Re'vok. "Take us back to Voragine-Five. I need a break."
- - -
POV: James Cromwell. Three hours later.
I took a deep breath as I spoke to the pilot. "Decloak and activate the radio."
I felt the hum of the cloaking field and the pilot nodded to me. "This is James Cromwell, official representative of the people of Kaelastrum. I'm here to speak with captain Jill Pearce of the Pax Magellanic."
A moment of silence passed. "This is her. State your purpose."
I responded immediately. "I am here to negotiate for asteroid mining rights."
"Confirmed. You are free to land in the top starboard bay," came the reply.
I spoke once more. "I would like to say that in the interest of transparency, we are aware that you are the AI of the Pax Magellanic."
I held my breath and hoped that the ship didn't decide to blow us out of the sky right then. Several moments passed before the reply came. "Understood. Your landing location remains the same."
I blinked a few times and looked down at the pilot. I shrugged once before nodding down at the pilot; speaking through the radio, I replied. "We're landing in the designated bay."
The pilot slowly pushed the ship into the hangar. Waiting for us were two dozen androids, a dozen on each side leading to the entrance. In the center, a blond woman stood waiting. The ship's captain.
I walked out of the Tel'tak and approached the vessel's captain. "Captain Pearce," I spoke as I reached out my hand. She grabbed mine and shook it. "I'm James Cromwell."
She looked down at my SLDF uniform. "Welcome aboard. May I ask how you came to know of the state of my crew?"
I smiled lightly. "It simply isn't possible for your crew to have remained alive for this long. It is more likely that you replaced your crew with Androids. On top of that, the crew members that greeted the scout team weren't biological."
She nodded. "I suppose the Goa'uld have improved their sensor tech along with their stealth tech. Very well, this way please."
I followed her down the hallway to the same room that she had taken Kaela to. As we both sat down, I pulled out a flexi, one of the objects taken from the Garuda class wrecks. "These are the asteroids that we have currently selected for mining. All within close proximity."
She touched the pad and nodded. "These are acceptable."
I smiled. "Good. While we were scanning the system, we picked up a half dozen Garuda Class hunters. Would you want those returned?"
She gently shook her head. "You can keep anything that you've already taken, but I'm claiming everything else."
I nodded. "In that case, we would like to see about purchasing these pieces of salvage."
I pass forward another flexi. This one had the information on eight remaining Garuda Class vessels that were floating in space, as well as remnant wreckage of several very old Goa'uld vessels.
The captain touched the Flexi and I continued. "In exchange for these pieces of wreckage, we are willing to offer an example of a modern Goa'uld cloaking device."
Captain Jill raised both eyebrows. "Done. How will you be transporting it?"
I blinked. "We have a couple disassembled Goa'uld vessels. We would provide the cloak and the necessary systems to activate it."
"That is acceptable." The captain nodded.
I let out a rather tense breath. "Good. Then there is one final thing I need to discuss." I tried to relax before I continued. "The Goa'uld have a device they call the Sarcophagus. It is a healing device, but it has one ability that is of particular note. If a body is sufficiently well preserved, they can be revived."
The captain stared at me, before letting out a deep sigh. "I have genetic samples from all of my former crew, but I'm afraid what few bodies I had long disintegrated."
I nodded. While that was disappointing, it wasn't unexpected. So, I moved onto the next major problem. "That may be true of your crew, but what about the Nietzscheans? Of the six Garuda class vessels we've already salvaged, three of them had crew that are sufficiently preserved to allow for revival."
She didn't react. For nearly ten seconds, the captain was silent. She slowly sat back. "I don't want to, but I suppose that even if they are traitors, they are all that remains of the Systems Commonwealth."
I nodded. "I can't guarantee that it will work, and we have nearly 400 of our own people that we plan to revive first, but if there are Nietzscheans who could be revived… well, I suppose that would be up to you to decide."
"How long would it be before you've revived all of your own people," she asked.
"A bit less than a year," I responded.
"Then, assuming we're still in contact when the time comes, we can discuss this again then."
I nodded. "Well Captain, thank you for your time."
She smiled bitterly. "Please, call me Maggie." She reached out her hand once more, I did the same. "James."
With the rather brief meeting coming to an end, the captain escorted me back to the hangar. Once onboard, I took a seat and nodded to the pilot. "Take us back."
The ship took off, the cloak reactivating.
- - -
Thirty minutes later.
I entered the room with Arktos and Ma'chello both waiting for me. I took another deep breath and sat down.
Arktos raised an eyebrow. "I take it the meeting went well?"
I nodded. "She was lucid and self aware. The moment we stated that we knew her crew were androids, she dropped the facade. She accepted the trade with no issue."
Ma'chello sat back. "So Arthur's information was wrong?"
I shrugged. "He was right about where the ship was, and its general state, even about the state of the crew. This whole thing is an enigma."
"Arthur said that the Pax was stuck for 300 years. Well, It's been more than 300 years since she was trapped here." Ma'chello spoke.
I nodded. "Well, Arthur is going to have a field day with the remaining Nietzschean ships."
- - -
POV: Arthur Sinclair. Three hours later.
The remaining few Nietzschean Fighters had been brought in as soon as the rather brief negotiations had concluded. Of the eight that had been salvaged, three still had a fully preserved crew, three had a partially preserved crew, and one had just bones. We used 41 Stasis Tubes to safeguard the bodies and then had the rest of the ships landed.
Now, I finally got access to a further eight Garuda class Hunters. Without waiting, I began running my hands over each of the pieces of salvage.
First Perk Activated. Complete Blueprint Acquired: Garuda Slip Hunter
Nietzschean Communication Suite, Nietzschean TSS Suite
It only took running my hand over two of them to finally get the complete blueprint. Frankly the vessel's computer systems were disappointing, even when compared to Star League era tech.
I let out a sigh and turned to the engineering team that was here with me. "Alright. Let's start cutting these things up. We'll disassemble them and take them through the gate."
I turned to look at one of the Al'kesh taking off in the distance. It was carrying the cloaking device that was being offered to the Pax. Hopefully she wouldn't decide to start killing us all now that we'd revealed that we knew her.
- - -
POV: Pax Magellanic.
I stared at the transport craft as it approached. "We're bringing the Goa'uld cloaking device. Where do you want us?"
It took me a moment to respond. "Starboard hangar. Same deck." I replied.
Speaking with vocal cords was odd. I had spent nearly fifty years as a warship in the commonwealth, and now I had been stuck in this system for 25340 years, 506 times longer than my time spent with the commonwealth.
I watched as the transport landed, and a large ramp descended. The person who walked out wore a military uniform, the same one as James Cromwell, though I didn't recognize it. The one in the lead nodded to my main body. "Permission to come aboard, Captain."
Formality, the waves of nostalgia that filled me were confusing. "Permission granted."
He smiled. "Well, we have the cloak here, we'd appreciate some help getting it unloaded, if that would be alright with you."
"Of course, that's what I'm here for." I replied back.
I followed the man onboard. The only thing in the hold was a large device of clearly Goa'uld make; the strange crystal computing technology was what really gave it away.
Five androids together picked up the machine. The man whistled. "That is some serious lifting capacity."
I nodded and carried the device off the ship, through the hangar, and into the closest storage room. I would be disassembling it there.
I turned to the commander of this vessel. "Thank you for being so timely."
He smiled. "No, thank you. Not every day we get access to 25,000 year old technology. I know the engineers are having a field day."
He was quiet for a moment. "I was told to let you know, in the coming few days, we're going to be bringing a lot of materials to start preparing an industrial base in this system. If there is anything you need, then please let us know."
I nodded to him. "Understood."
"Well, I'll be on my way. It's been a pleasure meeting you, ma'am."
With that he returned to his ship, the ramp closed. "Permission to depart?"
It took me a moment to activate the radio. "Permission granted. Have a safe flight."
The ship took off and was out of the hangar in a flash. "Thank you, Pax. Have a great day."
I had been watching these people since they had first landed on the system's fifth world. It was a good thing they had decided to remain cloaked. If I could have, I would have just blown them out of the sky. It's a good thing I hadn't. Most of their tech clearly wasn't Goa'uld. I would have regretted it.
It was nice to have people I could talk to.