OOC: apologies for this longer than my normally long posts, here--but, in my defense, I did have my head shoved up my butt for a really long time....
Alexander Coltrane:
Alex took the offered hand and shook with Kaspar. "Before I came to the SGC, I were a Swimmer Canoeist. Now, I'm not so sure." He was a little taken aback by the next question, "Mufti, tie? I went to Pompey, if that's what you mean."
"I was indeed asking about your Old School Tie, Major." Kaspar responds as he shakes Alexander's hand,
"The University of Portsmouth is a fine institution--especially for one considering a career with the Royal Marines..."
Kaspar suddenly snatches his hand away from Alexander's as if it had suddenly burst into flames,
"Hold on...did you say, 'swimmer canoeist'?" Kaspar asks in a tone of surprise, gawking at the man
"You're SBS? Holy Mother of God, man! What are you doing here? Did you break the heart of the First Sea Lords daughter, or something?"
Kaspar looks aside at the rest of the Team, and explains,
"Ladies and Gentlemen...Major Coltrane is a member of the British Royal Navy's Special Boat Service. Um, what you Yanks would call something like the US Navy SEALS..."
Kaspar gives a wink towards Tate and Lucky, and a bit of his native Polish accent slips into his voice,
"But Soviet Red Army considered SBS better than SEALS. And Spetznaz GRU soldaty only grudgingly admit they thought SBS was almost as good as them."
Kaspar turns back to Alexander, and his Chicago accent is back,
"Well, well. Welcome aboard, Major Coltrane. Welcome to Team SG-X1."
Gavan:
"Fist bumps and high-fives aside," Gavan says to the military men, "do we investigate the basement?"
"These corner computers were probably just training consoles... until they lost power. I'd have to guess the power came from below, so whatever may have happened to this facility probably happened down there."
"Also, Kaspar, check me on this, but all these alcoves along the walls appear to be sleeping areas. Does that seem consistent to you for the type of inhabitants we observed? This would be like an artificial cave for them, right?"
"The First Ones are clearly more advanced than these creatures, but is that intentional or the result of some miscalculation on the part of the Alterans?"
"Well," Kaspar responds,
"we know that the Alterans on this planet were involved in the genetic modification and evolutionary advancement of a number of species. To what end, I am not yet sure. Given the nature of the creatures we saw outside this facility, added to the very cave-like environment we find here, inside, I'd say there's a good possibility that the Alterans were trying to develop a winged intelligent species, perhaps something like in that old movie--they wanted 'flying monkeys'...?"
Kaspar gives
Tate and Lucky a simple
nod of acknowledgement when they state their intention to
search around the Ring site.
"I think we can safely assume that this level, at least," Kaspar says, after those two have searched around a bit,
"does give the impression of having been used for some kind of species uplift training. I hope you men took lots of video, as you searched...?"
Freyda:
"We will not find an answer to those questions on this level," Freyda replied. "I do believe it is time to go down to the next level."
"Are you ready for what we might find, Alexander? This is all new for you."
"Ready when you are, Naseem. Two shifts of 4? You, me, Kaspar and Lucky in the first group. Tate, Alexander, Sarah and Gavan in the second."
"Hope it doesn't get too crowded."
"That grouping is fine by me, Freyda." Kaspar responds, once again drawing his Makarov pistol from its worn leather holster and thumbing off the safety--then holding the weapon one-handed and pointed at the floor,
"Naseem, Hecate, ready when you both are." Kaspar nods at the Tok'ra equipped US Marine Major.
A flash of light later, as the transport rings drop away, revealing the large chamber to the Team's lights, Kaspar notices Naseem stagger,
Hecate:
Although Naseem passed out, the Hecate Tok'ra symbiont is able to take control of Naseem's body to keep her from falling to the floor.
"Do not be alarmed. Naseem will recover momentarily. Neither of us realized that this ring system no longer had any power. When Naseem activated it, it drew the necessary power from her own personal energy."
"I believe Freyda's chair can provide the necessary energy to bring the others down here."
Kaspar anxiously spins towards Naseem, as he sees her stagger, but relaxes at the Tok'ra assurances.
"That actually was what I was about to ask after, thank you Hecate." Kaspar chuckles,
"Lucky--stick close to the Major. Give her or Hecate any assistance they may require, until Major Ansari has fully recovered. Maybe...step just over there, to clear the Ring..."
Freyda:
Even as Hecate works on reviving Naseem, Freyda extends the sensors of her Asgardian hoverchair out in search of the dead ring system. There did not appear to be anything wrong with it--it just did not have power. Diverting power from the chair to power the rings was nearly as easy, and even as Naseem regained consciousness, Freyda brought the other 4 team members down to this level.
"I can not detect any other levels below this one," Freyda then informed the others. "This would appear to be the bottom of the pyramid."
StarMaster:
This level of the step pyramid appears to be a continuation of the structural progression of the building--20% larger than the level above they just came from.
The ceiling in here is 40 feet high. All four walls... and much of the interior... are filled with a wide array of electronic cabinets and consoles, most of which is probably computers. They are all dark and lifeless, though... and every last one that you can see has been attacked! Huge claw marks seem to gouge the front and sides of each cabinet.
And then your lights find the crater.
In the center of the room, around 20 feet in diameter, there is a hole in the floor. The outline is jagged but the actual interior sides of the shaft are nearly as smooth as glass as they drop 100 feet straight down to a mirror-polished hemisphere at the bottom.
"I'm no technology expert," Kaspar says, breaking-and-shaking a chemical glo-stick and dropping it down the hundred-foot shaft,
"But I think we've found where this facilities power generator used to be..."