[i]The moment the scan began, Ariadne squeezed shut her eyes, expecting the unfamiliar and disturbing feeling of being dematerialised by a transporter beam. Thankfully, that did not happen. However, she heard the ominous sound of something being pumped into the atmosphere. She assumed instantly that it was poison, probably symbiote poison, and kept her eyes shut, expecting to die any second now in a very painful manner. A second and a breath of air later, she realised that she was not dying horribly. She opened her eyes even as she tried to figure out what actually was being pumped into the room.

The gas was an acrid and unpleasant mix, not expressly poison, but neither was it something she wanted to be breathing for too long. As she worked to purge Idalia’s lungs of the substance, she also determined that it was likely both stale and slightly flammable. Her immediate thought to blast the doors open with her staff-weapon was cast aside with that revelation. “This gas is toxic. I will be fine for some time, but we should find a way to stop the room filling with it quickly, you won't be able to operate for long in it.” She cast about, looking for a way to stop the flow of the gas. The flashing, beeping console might help in the long run, but the others did not have the time for her to find control crystals and reorder them to open the door or stop the gas. Assuming the ship even had control crystals.

Shining the light over the walls quickly, she spotted two vents on the floor. They were both circular and not very large, but they were on opposite sides of the room. She could immediately tell they were the source of the gas as the air near them was starting to become cloudy. “Miller, we have to cover these vents.” She said tersely, pointing out the one further from her. She had to get something large enough and flat enough to cover it properly, but the room was devoid of anything mobile. Instead, she shrugged off the Tau’ri jacket she was wearing and slipped out one of the ceramic sheets that was meant to defend from staff blasts. She quickly placed it over the vent, relieved to see that it was large enough, and held it down. It wasn’t easy with the gas trying to push it away, but it was manageable.[/i]

Miller moved over to his vent and after pulling at it to see if he could open it before he did anything else. He removed one of his plates of armour and put it over the vent and then stood on top of it as the pressure was still building, he could hear it hissing through slightly. It was better for him and Ariadne to be working on this anyway, Milton probably would have more luck in trying to figure out what the console said in order to try and disable the power systems or more specifically the life support which was the main thing that was a problem.

Miller tapped his radio in order to open a channel to the ship. “Tempest, this is Miller. We have a bit of a situation right now. We’re inside the ship and the power has activated by our presence. We’re in some kind of lockdown and the life support appears to be routing some kind of fumes into the compartment, Ariadne believes they could be flammable so weapons or explosives are out of the question right now, requesting beam out in order to get breathing apparatus.”

“TS-1, this is Tempest.” answered a technician over the radio. “It is negative on the beaming. Array will not lock on. Over.”

[i]Ariadne was not happy to hear that response over the radio. She knew she understood the threat somewhat better than Miller, even if only a little and so she responded quickly, snapping back over the radio at the foolish technician. “Then make it lock on, get the expert on beaming if you must, if you cannot assist us quickly the others may die!”[/i]

“No expert available, sorry. The real experts serve on the american ships. The closest thing to an expert we’ve got is lying in the medical bay with a severe concussion.” The technician was apologetic. “There might be some sort of jamming in place. There’s some disruptive signal I cannot identify.”

[i]Ariadne bit back a terse reply at the latest answer. It was obvious no help was coming from the Tempest.[/I]

Brandt buried his face into the crook of his elbow as he made his way over to the console that was showing an alert. He shelved his FN P90 on it’s sling strap and focused on the readouts and the symbols. At least there was context, not like the door outside. He fought the urge to cough or to take deep and rapid panicked breaths. Instead, he focused on slow breathing, while trying to avoid taking in the gas as much as he could. He was aware of others removing trauma plates from their gear and working to stave off the gas flow. It was only a stop-gap measure. “Might sit down,” he muttered, as he considered having their entire body weight and shape against the vents might help further seal them. It sounded stupid, even in his head, but if it worked… was it really stupid? 

“Right then,” he said much louder, focusing on the symbols. It was certainly related to an old dialect of Asgardian, but it wasn’t exactly the same. That was the trouble with old languages. Sometimes they could change in as little as a generation, as Dr Weir had noted at least once. Words, concepts, and pieces of the Asgard language and what military precursor primers he had tumbled through his head. If it were Ancient he’d have been better off, but there was no time to worry about that. Wiping a little bit of sweat off his forehead he found the patterns and confluences… the etymology of the language. “I… As near as I can tell it is giving a warning. It means… infection or contagion. I’m not one hundred percent. It could be something we brought in from a non-sterile environment… or it could be screaming about Ariadne.” 

Quickly Milton punched in a set of symbols, that bore a close resemblance to an old dialect, hoping to at least pull up some sort of response from the computer systems. It was going to take a couple of minutes to figure out the basic setup of the computer, assuming that the core hadn’t gone retarded with no maintenance for however long. “Come on Hal, please say ya like me…”

The computer gave an annoying flash of red, across the readout. Coughing some, he fumbled with the keyboard again, throwing another attempted command, cursing under his breath. The readout flickered and glitched for a moment, then changed over. Grumbling and coughing, he keyed in more, but seemed to get an error message. Another try popped up a new display. “Okay getting somewhere,” he informed them. He was getting a little bit of a feel for the system, but he was still having to make guesses. Pulling out his notebook and language primer that he had, he began adding to the cypher what he’d been able to pick up so far. 

After a minute he hit another command. “Ahah.. I’m into the next layer down,” he reported. “Working on the quarantine protocol override.” Taking a few moment, he punched in a command line, which gave him an error. Try again… another error. He coughed, gagging a little. “Ugh, this stuff reminds me of the CS gas from basic training,” he snipped, then gave it another try, coming at it from a new direction. Immediately, the alarm died out. 
“Try the door, I think that’s got it.”

[i]The moment Ariadne heard Milton suggest the door might open, she prepared to release her hold on the sheet of armour that held back the worst of the gas flow. “Watch out, the air is about to thicken.” Her warning given, she stood and moved swiftly to the door, grasping at the few holds she could get on the largely featureless bulkhead. She heaved with all her strength and the door budged. She edged her fingers around the now exposed end and pulled again, noting as some of the gas was sucked out. The door moved a little, but jammed, a fact made evident by a harsh screeching of metal.

“It is stuck.” She said redundantly. The one good thing was that it was open far enough to prevent a lethal build of gas. Not enough for even her slight figure to fit through though, much less the bulkier Tau’ri men. “I think we could move it all together.” She was somewhat stronger than each of the men individually, but together they were stronger than her. With that and her own strength, the door would likely be simple to drag open.[/i]

Milton turned from the console and jogged the few steps to the door, to begin assisting the Tok’ra. He gave her nod and the briefest of smiles before hooking his fingers on the edge of the doorway as well. The fresher, cleaner air was welcome, but it wasn’t enough. At least they could backtrack and get back outside. They’d have to get medchecked and cleared again, before coming back down though.