"Without some help this is going to be tricky and error prone.... and errors will quite probably result in death. Let's hold still for a bit and give the aliens a chance to revive enough to tell us what they know."

"Yes, the arc reactor, as you call it," Jik Spo Gan replies to Karen.

"The ship struck a cosmic string and the arc reactor controls were damaged. Before we could do anything about it, it ran wild. Plasma bolts pulsed throughout the whole ship causing even more damage. It was all the crew could do to bring the ship to this planet and land it. I believe they paid the ultimate sacrifice to do that."

"The only way to shut it down now is either by letting it consume all the matter in its reactor, which could take months, or by using the emergency override switch in the main control room. It's covered by a gray and orange safety box."


When he's done speaking, Karen relays the information to Coleman, Kyle and Jason.

"Did you see that box in there, Kyle? Where is it in the room. One of us will need to get to it and turn it off."

"Oops, got my names mixed up, sorry; it was Kyle who Coleman would have asked."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:32, Thu 04 Aug 2022.

Armed with a description, Kyle begins to search...

Kyle did see the indicated box. It will require moving half way across engineering to reach it.

The grounding suits you have on should be sufficient for one attempt. There's no guarantee that they'll last for more than one strike.

"Right. Tell me what to do and I will try first. If I can't then one of you try. We can't let this go on."

Once the procedure is obvious, Coleman tries his best to time his run for a lull and get in there and turn it off.

Coleman steels himself, and then makes a mad dash in between bolts, around the bridge to the safety box, flips it up, and then hits the button.

There's a loud rumble from somewhere below, there's a final surge of multiple plasma discharges, and one strikes the wall right next to Coleman's hand. He can feel the electricity run up and down his arm and body, but it otherwise doesn't do any damage.

The silence and the darkness of the aftermath are almost an overwhelming relief. Fortunately, your radios are still working.

 Lizzy takes notes on both of her patients and tries to get a set bio level and try to figure out what might be normal for their alien biology. She will monitor them both closely and also keep her ear open on the radio in case she is needed in the ship.

"Holy f...udge. That was close!" Coleman takes a few seconds to let the adrenaline subside a bit, then keys up his radio; "We got it turned off, I think. How are things looking out there?"

Lizzy has no problem getting 'base line' readings for both aliens, but those are only in Human terms. As near as she can tell, any creature is bound to have a blood pressure, for instance, since if it has a heart, it has to pump the blood to the various parts of the body. That's kind of given.

What she can't tell is what other parameters are valid for an alien. It's kind of akin to an automobile: there's oil pressure, tire pressure, compression, spark, temperature... Who knows what other subsystems these aliens may have.

 Lizzy takes detailed notes and enters everything into her laptop to possibly work on a new alien profile program. Once she knows they are both stable she says to the Alien," How are you feeling I am a doctor I am trying to help you but I do not know you biology, can you help me help you." This was her calling being a doctor and heal others.

"It has been my experience that we are different than most species we've encountered in this galaxy," Jik responds to Lizzy.

"We have what you might call 'redundant systems'. We have four arms and four eyes--our internal organs are also doubled. When an organ gets damaged, it shuts down and the second organ takes over. The damaged organ repairs itself eventually."

"In the current instance, my nervous system took the brunt of the shock and shut down one of my hearts. The other heart was still functioning, but because the nervous system had been short-circuited, the second heart went into sustenance mode... functioning just enough to keep me alive. Alas, the nervous system does not have a back up system. So it needed the stimulus of your device to jump-start it again."

"I honestly do not know how long I would have laid there unconscious before I died. There is no record in my memory of such an event having occurred before."

"To further enlighten you, yes, I have two brains... one brain controls the arms on the opposite side of the body and the other brain the other arms. The two are integrated via what you call the 'hypothalmus'."

"What else can I tell you? Our frill helps regulate body temperature."

"This is just basic information that all starfarers are taught. More details are known, of course, by our medic. I do not believe she survived the crash."

"So what do we do now?" Jason asked as they waited to get a status report from the women.

"Considering the damage this ship took, I doubt if there's anything worth salvaging. I'd be super-leery of removing the arc reactor and taking it back with us, even if we could. While I have a lot of respect for the techs back at SGC, the reactor seems like a bit more power than I'd be comfortable. Remember what happened with the black hole."

"I wonder if these aliens know about the stargates and whether the survivor knows the gate address of his homeworld? I'm sure Command would like to send a diplomatic mission there!"

"Well, I suppose we can head out; everything seems dead here. Let's get to the entrance we used and look outside to see if the pulses have stopped too.

As for salvage; I'm pretty sure the SGC will send a salvage team to see if anything of value can be gained or learned from this. Assuming of course they're allowed to come."

Coleman heads to the entrance they took to get onto the ship.

"Yeah, not sure the alien would let us poke and prod his ship," Jason adds as he follows Coleman out of the ship.

"Do you think they might have a problem sharing some of their technology with us? The problem with them doing that is that they might be concerned that we'd use their own technology against them. We're not their enemy but they may not see it that way."

"In any case, it'll take years if not decades to turn any of this into something usable against the Goa'uld."

When Coleman, Kyle and Jason rejoin Karen, Lizzy and Carter, Karen takes Coleman aside.

"I think our alien friend there is from another galaxy," she tells Coleman. "That may mean that his ship has some sort of intergalactic drive. If that's the case, he may be stranded here."

"We could contact the Asgard. They should be able to take him home."

"If he, er, it? Is from another Galaxy, then the Asgard are our best hope to help. However, we aren't even certain of anything yet, I think. Perhaps the Furlings could even help? Lets try to get both of them back to the main Furling settlement and we can discuss this further with them."

" Yes, Asgard might be able to help them. So might the Furlings. "

 Lizzy was busy monitoring and taking notes on both her patients, but the alien was amazing, and his redundant systems were just awesome. Lizzy was engrossed in her work and didn't realize the others where back.

 Lizzy then said," The Furling should be able to travel I do not know enough about the alien yet to know if it is safe to move him but I think it is, and his race is amazing." Lizzy was excited to study both of these races up close.

 Lizzy looks at the alien," Are you safe to travel we cant leave you here, is there anything you need from your ship?"
 

"Although I am not fully healed, I believe it is safe for me to travel," Jik responds.

"Yes, there are three things I need from my ship. I need to retrieve a genetic marker from all of my deceased crew to confirm that they are dead. Their families will need that closure."

"Secondly, I will need food stores from my ship to sustain me. Possibly water, too. There are certain biological contaminants that are dangerous to the Ra'avi. Otherwise, purified water is necessary."

"Third, I am obligated to destroy my ship so that it cannot fall into the hands of the enemy... in particular, the Grognards."

"After the collision, none of us had the opportunity to arm ourselves, so I would like to retrieve a personal weapon as well."

As the Furling stands up, Jik seems to notice him for the first time.

"You are in league with the Grognards!" he semi-shouts in astonishment, frustration, and anger.

"Grognards?! Who are the Grognards?" Coleman looks at the Furling, addressing him; "Is he calling you a Grognard? Are your people in conflict with his people? Do you know what's going on here?"

Then Coleman addresses his team; "Ok, if he needs to gather stuff then destroy his ship, let's assist with that. We're not here to pick sides. Until we have this settled, let's all stay here in the area." Coleman looks at each of the aliens; "That goes for both of you too."

Yagafafamar looks at the other alien, apparently seeing him for the first time.

"I do not recognize his species," Yagafafamar replies. "We are not in conflict with anyone, not even the Goa'uld, although they keep trying to force it."

"Nor do I know what a 'Grognard' is. But, I am not a Teacher. One of them may know more about this than I do."

"I think it's a translation issue," Jason says. "Grognard isn't an alien word. It's sort of Old French. I think the translation is more like 'old soldier'... possibly 'old guard'."

 Lizzy stood up and then said," Well you are both my patients and I will not let anything happen to either of you. I say lets help Jik perform his tasks, I can get the DNA samples if he trusts me to do it."

 Lizzy turns to Jik," Is there anyway we might retrieve information o these Gronards from you ship Jik." Jik could tell she was serious and was very protective of her patients.