Aberrant: Stargate Universe - Geeks United

[Rorx]

Gwyn walked down the corridor from the gate-room, pondering the successes and failures of the mission on Abydos. Largely things had gone well, but a few things hadn’t. He had not been particularly surprised at the failure of Jaunt to act in a responsible manner, disappointed, but not surprised. He had been surprised by the sergeant simply smashing his way through the wall though. The problems the sergeant had with his transformation were perhaps putting more pressure on him than he was letting on, and that could have made him strike out prematurely. These were things that Gwyn couldn’t do anything about, his failure to secure the ancient Zat [ul]was[/ul] something he could try to do something about for future missions. Unfortunately it would have to wait while he grabbed a shower to get rid of the remnants of the Abydos sand, had his obligatory medical and sat through the inevitable debrief. Writing his report on the mission can wait until later.

And so a couple of hours later, Gwyn made his way around the lab level, the remains of the ancient Zat in a box in one hand, examing the labels on the lab doors. Eventually he came to one with a name on it that he recognised from some reports he had read over the last couple of weeks. Knocking on the door he entered, to see the room in semi-darkness, half way across the room hunched over a computer keyboard, his profile illuminated by the moving, multi-coloured lights coming from the screen was the balding, bespectacled figure of Dr Lee. Gwyn was intrigued by what could have captured his attention sufficiently that he hadn’t heard Gwyn knock and enter, so he made his way around the bench and stands of equipment to look over his shoulder. As he did so a chuckle escaped him, and Dr Lee jumped at the sound, his hand reflexively moving to the F12 key.

“It’s alright Dr Lee, no need to stop on my behalf.” Gwyn reassured the startled, embarrassed, physicist, “I’ve been known to play a little World of Warcraft myself, although I haven’t had much time to do so normally. Actually, that’s not a bad idea, if they’ll let me have offsite internet access.”

“What are you talking about, and for that matter who are you?”

“I think you might want to save or quit or something before that boss demon fries you Doc.” Gwyn replies, nodding back to the screen.

“What? Oh, yeah. Ok, give me a minute to sort this out and I’ll be with you.” Lee turns muttering back to the screen as he removes himself from the game.

Gwyn, turns and wanders around the room, looking over the odds and ends scattered over the tables and stands. A few things he recognises, either from his days at University or from reports since he arrived, but a number of items of both terrestrial and alien origin are new to him. Lee finished saving and getting out of his game, then spun his chair round to face the intruder in his lab.

“So like I said, who are you and what do you want.” Lee demanded.

Gwyn points to the SG-21 badge on his fatigues, “My names Gwyn Jones Dr Lee, I’ve just come back from a mission to Abydos where I found my lack of knowledge about alien technology and the underlying principles could have put my team mates at risk. To be fair I just want to find out what I can. My degree is in Physics with Electronics so I’m interested in anything you can teach me about this stuff.” He waves a hand around, indicating the variety of alien and advanced human tech in the lab.

“That’s not exactly a easy thing you know. I’ve been working on this stuff for years and we still are only scratching the surface of most of the really good alien stuff.”

“Oh, I’m pretty smart Doc, I think I’ll be able to keep up, and I’ve got time to study so any pointers you can give me would be appreciated.” Yeah, thinks Gwyn, a spare 6 hours or more every day should help pick it up.

“Look, I brought you this ancient Zat that blew up on us soon after we found it on Abydos, do you think you could start with how that works and then the other Ga’ould tech. I guess that’s the stuff we’ll be coming across the most often out there?”

“Yeah, I suppose I could do that. Another perspective, and occasional pair of hands never goes amiss round here, but I’ll have to make sure it’s cleared with Major Carter and the bigwigs.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else really.”

Lee turns back to the desk and calls Major Carter, “Hi Sam, I got a Gwyn Jones in here asking me to teach him about the alien tech, you know this guy?” there is a pause while Major Carter replies to him, after the first couple of words he quickly turns back to Gwyn, and is obviously looking at the team patch on his shoulder.

“Oh, ok, well yeah, I’ll do what I can then. See you in a minute then Sam.”

Putting the phone down he looks closely at Gwyn.

Gwyn sighs and turns around slowly on the spot, “No, there is no obvious signs that I got changed by that device. By the way I hope they’ve locked that away somewhere safe.”

Lee looks suitably chagrined when Gwyn turns back to face him, “Yeah, sorry about that. I guess you get that reaction sometimes.”

“No, not often, after all, not many people have the clearance to know what happened to us, but it’s understandable. I take it Major Carter is on her way down to talk to me?”

“Yeah, she is. She shouldn’t be long. So, what did it do to you is the next obvious question.”

Gwyn is just about to answer when Major Samantha Carter arrives.

“Hi guys. Gwyn I hear you want to brush up on your alien tech?”

“Yes Major, I hope that doesn’t pose any problem? After all I thought the science and engineering side was meant to be my role on the team, despite the abilities the Ancient Device seems to have given me.”

“No, that’s fine. In fact I wish some of the others had shown more interest. Indeed once you get up to speed I hope you’ll be able to help us advance our understanding. I believe the device has increased you Intelligence?”

“Yeah, it has compared with what it was beforehand. On the other hand I don’t know how that would compare with the people you have here. After all, you’ve been piecing this stuff together from scratch over only a few years.”

“Well, we have had some help from the Asgard, and the Tokra at various times.” Replied Carter.

“Yeah, we’ve done well,” preened Lee at the same time, until he realises what she has just said.

Sam gives him a look, and he turns back to the computer, which is now showing the results of some energy readings.

“Anyway Gwyn, we’d be glad to help you get up to speed, did you have anything in particular in mind?”

“Well, when I’m not on a mission I have several free hours in the afternoon I could spend going over stuff with whoever is available, or helping out if I could be of some use.”

“That sounds reasonable. We’ll keep it that you just come down and we’ll see who is doing what for now then see how it goes from there.”

“Great, I’ll see you tomorrow then, I’ve gotta go get a mission report done in before the 12 hour deadline.”

[Rorx]

1600 the next day sees Gwyn arriving at the lab again, although knocking a little harder before he goes in this time. Dr Lee is ready for him though with a Zat, Instar and Staff weapon laying on a bench to one side of his current work. Spinning round on his chair he turns to Gwyn as he enters the room.

“Hi Gwyn, I got a couple of things that I thought you might be interested in to start with.”

“Hi Doc, yeah. I’ve used all of these on the range, but I’d be glad to know how they work.”

Lee grinned at him, “How’s your particle physics?”

“Ha, not good enough I’m sure. My atomic, nuclear and hydrodynamics are ok, but then I used them a bit in my last job. I never really covered particle physics much, the closest I came was some high energy astrophysics in an astronomy unit I did. Having said that I’ll start brushing up on it tonight.”

“Well, that’s about what I expected. All three of these are used by the Goa’uld or their subordinates, but we doubt they created any of them originally. It is much more likely that they have stolen the technology from another race and adapted it for their own use. The Staff weapon is unusual in that it is used in melee as well as a ranged weapon. It is powered by a vial of liquid Naquadah, which gives it a large energy capacity….”

A few hours (~1900) later Gwyn had learnt a lot more about some small areas of particle and solid state physics, while Dr Lee had a greater appreciation for how quickly an enhanced Intelligence Specialist could absorb and understand new concepts.

“Thanks for that Doc, I’m going to go grab some dinner, but I’ll look up some associated and background stuff tonight. Any clues as to what you might want to cover tomorrow?”

“No.Not yet, I had expected these to last us a few more days yet so I’ll have to think about what to cover tomorrow more tonight.”

“Ok, night Doc.”

And with that Gwyn walked off to the cafeteria, a pad of notes under his arm.