GateWar Interludes
The ship was a mess, albeit an organised mess. All over I could see clearly into the workings of the ships, protective covers, panelling, all removed from every section, all taken off ship and dumped. Even the control crystals and stores had been carted out of the ship.
We wanted this baby, Earth wanted this baby. A mothership, a Cheops would easily be the largest warship hull in the Tau'ri navy. She was old of course, outdated, but presuming she passed the structural integrity tests, which despite the worn appearance of the outer hull appeared likely, she could be refitted and brought into operational use.
Frankly, we could use the hull anyway, even if we did have to break her down for parts. For now however, she had to be disinfected, a mission I was not happy to take on, but was grimly determined to complete and do it properly.
I, more then most, knew exactly how dangerous this beast and the secret she hid could be.
Grimacing, I stepped forward, my armour whining in my ears, carefully stepping dead centre of the corridor. I knew my gait was still awkward, I knew that I was still far from used to the prosthetic that had replaced my left foot and I knew that the armour whilst it protected my from the ravages of any surviving bacteria, would only magnify any mistake I was to make, increasing the damage to the unprotected and vulnerable insides of the ship.
Okay, so we had removed every single item that wasn't directly bolted down and indeed, more then a few things that had been bolted down, but still, these suits were heavy and strong, a single misplaced move in the wrong spot could cause a lot of damage.
As I walked, my eyes tracked across the corridors, checking above; below everywhere for a spot the bastard creation Ra had lost control of aboard this ship could hide. I found few, my team like I had seen the dangers of this bug first hand and were wary and thorough.
They needed to be, experiments had shown just how fast this bacteria could break down leaving tissue, multiplying with efficiency that would make a tribble proud and it was scary.
We would love to have abandoned this world, post our own warding sign and lock it out of the dialling computer but the mothership nixed that. We wanted, we needed that hull.
So we take a risk. We know the bacteria is unusually vulnerable to heat, particularly sustained heat so we repaired the ships airlocks, removed everything we could and then we brought aboard a trio of naquadah reactors, though truly this only needed one, and a hellacious number of heaters.
The corridors were lined with electric cabling, heaters at every intersection and along every corridor, all working to maintain this ship at a solid 65 0 C. Far higher then we needed to kill the bacteria but we had to be sure. It had to be left for days too, today was day six and we had plans to leave her like this another twenty days more.
And whilst that was happening, bar the four times a day inspection, this hull was sealed, empty, once more abandoned to its own devices.
We had other tasks to complete after all. Right now, the rest of my team were inspecting other areas of the hull, checking the cabling for faults, making sure everything was working well. Team two were on perimeter defence, which meant three members of the team were at the gate whilst the other two walked the rest of the perimeter, not that we truly expected an attack by land, not on this world. Team three, as memory serves me, should be off-duty as should team five, both would be in the protected and hot compound whose setting up had been our first objective. That left team four with the fiddly job of attempting to decontaminate every component we had removed from the ship, a not easy task when you consider that they have to wear their full armoured suits the whole time.
This is not an easy task and we have had our accidents, indeed, over the month we have been here six people have died due to suit failures of one sort or another and they have died in agony. A seventh survived, we got to him quick enough but Bane will never ever walk again.
This is a dangerous job. We expected that, the first loss was still very much a shock and an eye-opening though, I knew the dangers, as did my team though that didn't save Bane, but the other had just been told and didn't truly understand or believe.
They lost that naivety quickly enough.
Still, another inspection complete, another day almost over, time to head back to the compound and broil. The only place you could remove, maintain your armour, eat, sleep and more, and naturally, it was the hottest spot on the entire mission. After this mission, I don't think I am ever going to look at a heater the same way again, nor complain so much when it snows. Right now, I would enjoy some refreshing cold.