A Legacy left Behind - Initial encounters

Part 3

"The power readings you were just now worried about Doc? It is still wonky or stable?" He asked with great patience.

"What? Wonky? Of course they are stable now. In fact, the power levels throughout the whole structure have leveled out and distributed for maximum efficiency."

"Huh, I wonder if he did it on purpose or if the system just did it by itself after recognizing his presence." The doctor muttered the last to himself; promptly getting busy on the laptop he had in front of him.

Concentrating only on the fact that they were not about to go boom in the near future for the moment, Jack turned his attention towards the head of admin.

"So tell me Dr.Weir, how goes the life here?" He settled comfortably into the chair, draping his arm over the back rest. By experience, he knew this would take time. The Sergeant placed a steaming mug of coffee in front of him and he gave the man a smile. There are still some kind and humane people around here Jack, he told himself.

"Oh everything has been wonderful of course. The excavation team's last report stated with confidence that we will be finished with the final bit of discovery of the complex by the end of the week. We shall be able to send a team for exploration to that area soon. They are saying that they may have unearthed a lab area and what looks to be a closed up storage area of some kind. The exploration team is quite excited that it could be more drones or maybe even the gate ships the data-base mentioned."

"Doctor Beckett and his team are ready to proceed with the animal trials for the artificial gene therapy. He is confident that his serum will manipulate the junk DNA in a human into a maximum level IV ATA capability. This will work on about 75% of non ATA gene population according to his latest report. Once we are through the trials and upon a peer committee approval, we could move to the clinical trials and then start the distribution among the SGC personnel-" Weir said before pausing for breath and taking a sip of her tea.

Just as well, because O'Neill was beginning to wonder if she was hiding an extra pair of lungs on her somewhere.

"Also, the translation of the initial data transfer we got from the Ancient depository is going well. We have had two more data transfers from engaging the Chair since then. We are getting all kinds of information about the Outpost, its capabilities, hints of other possible structures located around the galaxy even. But the translation is slow going since we only have three people who are proficient in the Ancient language, but it all looks quite promising."

She gave the General a winning smile before continuing.

"This is exactly why the Major will be invaluable right now. He will be able to sort the whole database into a coherent entity with an accessible index for us to study it efficiently. Not to mention all the help he can provide with the hard science projects around all Ancient equipment and of course the offense and defense capabilities of Terra Atlantus itself."

She finished her spiel without failing to enforce that they already had their greedy mitts wrapped tightly around poor Sheppard.

Not that Jack objected. He didn't. He could appreciate the value of having a close copy of an Ancient to run all things Ancient. He was quite sure the Ancient Outpost did not go through all the trouble of almost taking the entire nation hostage and demanding the life sign designated 'P1' be found and delivered to Antarctica, post-goddamn-haste, just to give him up. No, they needed him alright.

He had seen the kid's military jacket and was suitably impressed. The kid could pilot all the choppers on active service and a couple of fighters and even some of the heavy birds. He did have the odd remark or two made by his more sedate COs (read: desk jockeys) about following orders and maverick tendencies. But this was on a par with black ops requirements and they needed intelligent, quick thinking, cocky pilots who treated orders a bit like guidelines sometimes to get the job done. O'Neill would know, because he was not that different from this kid not too long ago. That was until someone at the head of the food chain decided to give him stars on the shoulder in the vain hope that it would make him more of a level-headed, responsible drone person.