Jump Chain Gothic 4 - Atlantis - Part 6
Glastonbury Tor. United Kingdom.
Travel using the rings felt a lot like Stargate travel, in that it was over quickly and felt like it should of hurt only it didn't, once it was over I found myself in a dark space. Not it that remained dark for long as old fashioned torches lit themselves without delay.
Without delay I started looking around and before long I found the expected sword in the stone, it was a sort of holographic sword, which functioned different from the holograms I was used to.
As soon as I went up to it a hologram of Merlin also appeared and took some time to welcome me. He mentioned the treasure, and some other stuff that made little sense to me. The message hadn't been intended for me.
With ease I managed to successfully complete the 'truth of spirit' test and the 'reflection' test, I'd seen the solutions in the show, and when I pressed the Asgard made stone to my head I was able to remember the episode much more clearly. Hopefully I would get to keep this stone I could foresee it being very useful in the future.
After finishing the tests I removed the sword from the stone and quickly defeated the holographic knight. I was no swordsmen, but thanks to the 'Tapestry of Life' perk I picked up during the Trek Jump I did have some skill in fencing, that long with my enhanced strength speed, and reflexes, allowed to me defeat the holographic guardian.
Having done that, I was able to lay claim to the 'treasure', and soon a dragon's hoard worth of gold items were lying about in piles, along with jewelry and jewels of all sorts, as well as other items of such as a few works of art, some pottery, and even some primitive weaponry.
None of which had any worth to me as I could get all the gold and jewels I ever wanted from a replicator. What mattered is that I was able to vaporise the long distance communication device with my phaser, and that I found a book that detailed some information about the Alterans and where they came from.
After looking around some more I found something that was obviously some kind of ancient device, it was about the width of a computer keyboard with what appears to be a holographic emitter at the top. There were buttons and some kind of data crystal or maybe a power crystal. It must be some Ancient laptop, and could contain information on the Sangraal.
Since my mission was now complete I grabbed the laptop and the book, before heading to the rings.
(Line Break)
Asgard ship. Earth Orbit.
"What about the rings and the holographic emitter, oh and the sword?" I asked Thor as he uploaded information from the Ancient computer into a machine of his own "Are we going to leave that all behind?".
Thor blinked at me. I figured that the titling of the head combined with blinking was some sort of nonverbal communication between Asgard, like how humans can use facial expression to convey moods, but I had no idea what Thor was expressing.
"While my people do have holographic technology, we will take the holographic emitter. I think we can learn something from that technology. We will leave the rings. We might find a reason to come back here someday, and we need to give the humans of this world the means to recover the treasure".
Thor quickly finished the upload.
"This computer does serve a similar purpose to the human device known as a laptop, only it is much more advanced" the little grey guy was now saying "I have copied the information, you may have the device itself".
I quickly picked it up. I didn't recall Merlin having left his laptop in that vault and I was sure that Seven of Nine would very much enjoy finding out what was on its database, and at some point Tali'Zorah would want to take it apart.
"Now I must return to your ship" Thor informed me "Atlantis is still under threat and the High Council has charged me with aiding in its defence".
So an Asgard ship was going to aid in the defence of the city. That was cool.
(Line Break)
Aurora-class Battleship. Pegasus Galaxy.
"Productive trip?" Miranda Lawson asked after an Asgard transport beam had returned me to my ship.
Indeed it had been.
"Yes" I replied "Our group has an alliance with the Asgard, and I've them given all the information we have on genetic engineering, as well as all those samples of alien DNA I've picked up over the years".
Those samples had been stored in my Cosmic Warehouse as such I'd been able to get them even while in the Ida galaxy. Once I'd relieved its existence to the Asgard it had raised a lot of questions, so I'd told them the truth, sort of, which was that I'd been sent to this universe by an ascend being. The actual truth, what Jump Chain involved, wasn't fully understood even by me.
As for trading the samples, well they'd never had much value to me, I'd only gathered them because I'd figured that they might come in handy some day, and now they had.
"In exchange, once things calm with Atlantis the Asgard will upgrade our hyperdrive" I was now telling Miranda "which will be handy since while we have that technology we don't know how to employ it".
The Atlantis Expedition had shared the knowledge of advanced hyperdrive with us, which had been an amazing act of trust at the time, but upgrading the hyperdrive might have been beyond our skill, at least in the short term.
"Given that we have a ZPM we could end up a top hyperdrive speed that will allow to move between galaxies in just a few weeks, maybe even days" I then said.
Which would still make Asgard ships much faster, but that made sense as they wouldn't want to give up their speed advantage even to an ally. Still even Quantum Slipstream drive was going to seem super slow when compared to an upgraded hyperdrive.
"They've even offered one of the new beam weapons they are working on, but we'll have to wait for that as its still research and development" I mentioned.
While the Asgard did have very advanced tech they weren't willing to hand over much despite my help. Partly this was because I already had Ancient tech, which was super advanced, and also because they didn't know me well enough to trust me with even more advanced tech. Not yet anyway. Which was wise.
They were however willing to offer me the best weapons they had, and that was good as I would need them once the drones ran out. I figured the weapons were given more out of sheer gratuite than trust.
"So did you single handedly save their entire race?" Miranda asked next.
Like their Ida cousins, the Vanir employ cloning as a means of propagating their race. Also like Asgard of the Ida galaxy, the Vanir suffered the negative effects of generations of cloning and re-cloning themselves and sought means by which to stabilize their genetic structure. However, where the Ida Asgard were unwilling to engage in acts that risked other lives in that endeavor, the Vanir, consumed with the desire to survive, believed that the ends justifies the means.
During the Ancient's war with the Wraith the Vanir began conducting experiments, similar to those conducted by Loki in the Milky Way galaxy, on Humans of the Pegasus galaxy, allowing them a level of success in stabilizing their genome and preventing extreme cellular degradation.
I sighed gently while remembering what I'd been told about the genetic problems of the Asgard. They'd attempted to correct the issue by slicing quite a bit of human DNA into their clone bodies, making these bodies look more like those of their distant ancestors, however the Asgard mind couldn't be supported by a human sized brain, and since normal humans couldn't ascend they didn't want de-evolve like that. If they did they wouldn't be Asgard anymore.
This might explain why the Asgard living in this galaxy were a lot more aggressive and less advanced in terms of technology (they lacked advanced hyperdrive and teleporters) than their cousins in the Ida galaxy. They could have used too much human DNA when making new clone bodies. It may have de-evolved them in some sense. Although given that they still looked like Asgard perhaps they hadn't used that much human DNA. Well it was just a theory.
Ascending was why more evolved humans were of interest to the Asgard, such as humans who had Ancients as ancestors, people like Jack O'Neill. The hope was that the genetics of more advanced humans would allow the Asgard to create new and healthy clone bodies that could support their minds, and not turn them into ruthless assholes, as well put them back on a path that could lead them to the ability to ascend.
Since I had the Ancient gene and a superior genetically engineered body I was of interest as well, and I'd given the Asgard many samples to study while visiting their homeworld. The other samples were of interest because they weren't just looking at human DNA for a solution to their problems.
"Even if some piece of information we gave them was the key to solving their problem with genetics, I don't think they have enough time to unlock the solution" I informed the former Cerberus operative "No they need a solution now".
Thankfully there might be one, more than one in fact.
"I let the Asgard know that somewhere on course between the Pegasus galaxy and the Milky Way there is a ship full of Ancients" I said to Miranda as we began walking to my quarters "In the show these Ancients basically kick everyone out of Atlantis, and of they do so here that should prevent some problems, like the creation of Michael and the Asurans going on the rampage".
While the Ancients might object to me having one of their warships, there wouldn't be much they could do about it, and I wasn't going to give in to any demands they had. I was only going to help save them because it suited me.
Hopefully the crew of the ship could provide the Asgard with all the evolved human DNA they needed to save their race, and in exchange the Asgard would be able to help the Ancients rebuild what they could.
That along with the Ori never learning that there were more humans out there in the big wide universe, should mean a lot less people dying over the coming years, and more stability. Not that things would be boring, the Wraith would still have their civil war.
In the Milky Way the Lucian Alliance could still be a pain, and the Free Jaffa Nation was going to have problems, perhaps even resulting in a civil war between the Jaffa factions. Plus there was Baal and his clones for the SGC to worry about.
So yeah plenty to keep everyone busy.
(Line Break)
Aurora-class Battleship. Pegasus Galaxy.
"This wasn't part of the plan" Major Sheppard stated.
I could tell that he was trying not to sound too angry. No doubt he was only holding back because I'd told him that if he didn't behave I'd throw him my ship even if there wasn't anywhere for him to go.
"The Asgard won't attack unless we at least give the Wraith the chance go back off" I informed the airforce pilot "And without that O'Neill class battleship out there I don't fancy our chances of taking on 23 Hive ships".
My new allies were a very moral people, and even when facing their own end they didn't abandon their ethics, which was why they had sent one of their most powerful vessels to aid us in this battle.
The Asgard were, thanks to me, aware of what their evil cousins had gotten up to during the Ancient-Wraith war, and how they'd completed their research at the expense of the humans in this galaxy.
Because the Asgard High Council had concerns about using the Vanir's research to save their race in the same way that a doctor on Earth would have an issue about using medical knowledge gained from unethical experiments to treat someone. The only real difference was the sheer scale.
Upon thinking about this I had suggested to Thor, who was in command of the Asgard warship which was part of our attack force, that the Asgard could balance out the karmic scales by aiding the humans in the galaxy.
This could be done in many ways, but the best way would be for the Asgard to aid Atlantis as they in turn tried to help the people of this galaxy. Not just by fighting the Wraith, who were everyone's enemy, but also through medical aid, food shipments, and supplies to help them recover from cullings.
My suggestion had gone down well with the Asgard High Council, who seemed to value my advice, most likely because an outside perspective was often helpful, and from their perspective I was a dumb human who tended to see simple solutions to complex problems.
"But we'll be throwing away the opportunity for a decisive strike on the enemy fleet" Sheppard argued "The more of them we kill here the less we'll have to deal with later, and I should point out that the Wraith are heading to Atlantis to murder us so they clear a path to Earth, and they want to go to Earth so they eat millions of people".
I was well aware of all this.
"Just because the enemy are ruthless assholes doesn't mean we have to be" I said to the Major "Besides I know they won't back off, making the offer just means we can kill thousands of them and not lose so much sleep over it".
I'd killed a lot of people during my Jump Chain, I'd long since lost count, but I didn't worry too much about it because it had always been in defence of myself or others that I cared about. I might be a killer, but I wasn't a murderer. And I didn't intend to change that fact. We would try to talk to the Wraith, and then nuke them all.
"Trust me, the Wraith won't take you seriously unless you kick their ass" Shepard insisted.
I had to remind myself as to why I'd allowed this man to tag along. Mostly it was because the Asgard had suggested that I make more of an effort to trust the people of Earth, like they had.
Those grey dudes were going to upgrade my hyperdrive for me, and they planned to give those cool beams weapons they were currently working on. But they could take those advancements away, as such I had to prove that I could get along with my allies, and that I would use the technology in a responsible way.
"Major, based on what I know about the Wraith I don't believe peaceful coexistence is at all possible, at least not without some serious changes to both their culture and biology" I said to the air force officer "In the meantime we'll do what we can to protect Atlantis, and that involves giving them a chance to break off, after that we'll blow up as many Hive ships as we can, then we'll disengage from combat".
By this point we were all aware that the beaming over warheads trick would only work a few times before the Wraith adapted to counter the threat. Once they did we'd have to leave and go with the self destruct plan.
"Besides it's not like they can pursue us" I said next "All our ships are much faster than there's so we'll be able to return to Atlantis within plenty of time, after we've blooded the enemy".
This plan had merit, the Wraith didn't have the endless numbers of warriors they'd had back when they'd battled the Ancients, and they hadn't fought a proper war in thousands of years. This was a good chance to bloody them.
"I just hope we don't live to regret this" Sheppard muttered.
When the Hives, and the supporting cruisers appeared, I used my command chair to bring up a holographic projection of the enemy fleet. They were in formation, forming a huge V shape almost like a flock of birds.
"You'd better raise the shield as soon as we de-cloak just in case they're feeling trigger-happy" Sheppard advised.
This wasn't exactly my first space battle. However this wasn't the time to bring that up.
"Drop the cloak and raise shields" I ordered.
Aurora-class warships didn't actually come with cloaking devices, but it had been pretty simple to install one. It had been one of the final upgrades we'd made before leaving spacedock.
"They're charging weapons" Cameron reported.
Given that a warship of their old enemy had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, their reaction wasn't surprising.
"Charge ours and get a lock on the closest Hive" I commanded "Prepare to beam over the first warhead".
Thor hadn't as of yet made his speech, which would urge the Wraith to leave Atlantis alone. Which of course they wouldn't.
"Wraith Darts are being launched" Seven of Nine reported over the comm system.
I had her down in what passed for astrometrics on this ship. I didn't want Shepard seeing her and asking questions about how come I had a fictional character on my ship. No one had recognised Cameron so far. Perhaps Summer Glau hadn't been an actress in this reality.
"Supreme Commander Thor is talking to the Wraith" Miranda informed me.
We all waited for the fighting to start. We didn't have to wait long.
"The Hives have opened fire" Cameron told me.
Now we could kill them and still maintain the moral high ground.
"Return the favour" I instructed "Pulse cannons focus on the nearest Hive. And beam over the warhead as soon as we can get a target lock".
Our transporter didn't have the greatest range. Tali had done her best, but she was only one person, as such we needed to get close.
"Wraith Darts are making an attack run" I was told.
There were a lot of Darts out there, more than enough to threaten even my ship with its ZPM enhanced shields.
"Redirect fire, use the pulse cannons to deal with the Darts" I commanded "And beam over the first warhead".
Within a matter of seconds three Hive Ships blew up from the inside, each having been destroyed by a beamed over powerful explosive which had come from a different ship. Thor's O'Neill class, the Daedalus or my own ship.
The damage wasn't as impressive as in the show, and the bombs themselves didn't do all the damage, the Wraith ships all suffered their own version of warp core breach. Which cause secondary explosions that were rather more impressive, and did the real damage.
"Think they'll surrender?" Miranda wondered.
Somehow I doubted it.
"No, but if they've got any sense they'll run" I said to her.
Even when three more Hive Ships were destroyed they neither fled nor surrendered.
"They are generating a jamming signal that prevents us beaming over any more warheads" Seven reported "I am attempting to compensate".
This was how we'd expected things to go, and it wasn't disappointing. If the Wraith did have about sixty Hives total then we'd just destroyed a tenth of them in a matter of moments.
"We could to take more of them with the drones" Sheppard suggested.
A bad idea given that we were still outnumbered and outgunned.
"Set course for Atlantis, prepare to engage the hyperdrive" I ordered.
This battle was over.
(Line Break)
Aurora-class Battleship. Pegasus Galaxy.
"They never show you these parts on TV" I said, mostly to myself "The bits when people sit around waiting for something to happen".
Granted there was a good reason for that as if a show did let the audience see those parts they'd lose their audiences pretty quick due to how boring it is. The downside to this was that when you found yourself in a school called fictional universe, you were totally unprepared for the dull parts.
Sure I'd experienced this before as I'd now spent many years living in science fiction settings, but that didn't change the fact that I was bloody bored. Which was actually rather impressive given that I was living the dream of being a starship captain.
"Do you ever think we'll visit the Earth of this reality" Cameron asked, rather out of the blue.
Since Miranda was sleeping, Tali was in engineering and Seven was in one of the science labs, it was just Cameron and I on the bridge. There weren't even any robots since there was nothing for them to do in here.
"Why do you ask?" I wondered.
By now I was looking over at Cameron, who as ever wore casual clothing that would allow her to blend in during my native time.
"I was thinking that we could visit Paris. It's supposed to be a very romantic city," Cameron told me "Your harem would enjoy such a trip".
Perhaps they would, and it was possible given that we could cloak the ship while it was in the Sol system, and take a Puddle Jumper, also cloaked to France. That wasn't without risk, but the danger would be minimal, and Cameron rarely showed much desire to explore her own interests.
"I do not understand why" Cameron said next.
Her question brought me out of my trail of thought, which had involved thinking about the sights we could visit on Earth via cloaked puddle jumper.
"Why what?" I asked.
During my time on Voyager my Terminator had become somewhat of a well rounded person in the sense that she had interests, opinions, and such. But she rarely made conversation like this.
"Why is Paris supposed to be any more or less 'romantic' than anywhere else on the planet?" she questioned.
I gave it some thought.
"No a clue" I told her "It's just romantic for some reason".
It might be better if she asked a woman about that. I cared little for romance.
"Still I would like to visit Paris" Cameron told me "If only to try to discover why it is romantic".
More than likely we could recreate the city on the holodeck, but I had the feeling that a simulation wouldn't be good enough.
"I thought of a way we could spend the time," the cyborg said after a moment.
After standing up I need a moment to have a good stretch. The captain's chair wasn't that comfortable, and sitting in for long periods of time wasn't pleasant.
"Yeah?" I said.
Cameron gave me a smile as she got down on her knees, then reached down and started undoing my jeans. I was also wearing what I considered to be rather normal clothing.
I watched as Cameron opened up trousers and slipped a hand into my boxers so that she could extract mu penis. I then bit back a moan as Cameron wrapped her fingers around my swelling cock, and began slowly pumping her fist up and down the hardening shaft.
She turned her gaze from my dick back and looked up at my face, and was soon giving me a naughty smile as she worked on my erection with her hand a little more before getting to work with her mouth.
This time I did moan as I felt her hot, wet mouth cover my cock. She'd spent a lot of time perfecting her oral techniques, and like when we did anything sexual my terminator totally focused on my pleasure.
Cameron could simply make herself wet and ready within a few moments, so foreplay wasn't really necessary, and while Cameron claimed to enjoy sex, she never seemed that concerned with her own pleasure. I'd tried to pleasure her, but I'd never gotten much of a reaction from her. She'd literally been made to keep me safe and happy, as such she was programmed to please me with sex.
She began gradually taking more of me into her mouth, and Cameron continued sucking me at a leisurely but steady pace. Then she suddenly stopped.
"Take your jeans off," she said
As I did that she reached down and undid her own belt.
"Cowgirl or doggy style?" Cameron asked as she unzipped her jeans.
Even for her that was rather frank, and even after years together she could still blind side me with her attitude. Although it was rare that she could do so these days.
"We need to have sex in a position that still lets me monitor my station" Cameron said, as she pushed her jeans and panties down off of her hips "That will only be possible in those two positions"
I smiled at the petite cyborg.
"Reverse cowgirl, please" I said.
"How adventures of you" she commented.
It wasn't really, it was my favourite position with Cameron, as she had a butt that was small yet somehow perfectly shaped. Clearly she'd been created with my love of butts in mind.
While the floor of the bridge wasn't comfortable I didn't really care, and neither did the cyborg as Cameron reached down and took hold of my cock, before using it to impale herself.
"I've read that variety can help maintain a healthy sexual relationship. One suggestion was to 'make love' in new and unusual locations" she let me know.
Cameron expertly began riding me. She knew exactly how to maximise my enjoyment, and she'd gotten plenty of practice pleasing me this way.
"Defiantly a new and unusual location even for us" I commented.
Her pussy engulfed my with tight, wet heat, as she made slow, up and down motions as she did the things she did second best, which was to pleasure me, the best thing she did was protect me.
I smacked her ass encouragingly as she began to pick up the pace. And this when an alert went off, letting me know that someone was calling me on the space phone.
"Ignore it" I said.
Cameron got up off me and rapidly began to dress, an act with greatly upset me.
"We can't" she said next "The signal is coming from the Asgard ship".
Well that meant it was Thor, and he was cool enough that I could forgive him for interrupting my naked fun time. It was good thing that Weir hadn't been the one to spoil the moment otherwise I might have fired on Atlantis.
(Line Break)
Aurora-class Battleship. Pegasus Galaxy.
In the end things worked out just like in the show. I was now on the bridge of my ship, which was cloaked, watching the Wraith Hives disappear into hyperspace, since they believed the city had been destroyed, and that the way to Earth was gone, there was no reason for them to stick around.
Before long the Wraith would start their civil war as despite their losses there wasn't enough food to go around. I knew the Wraith were territorial and as such different factions would soon start to fight over populated worlds, which to them were feeding grounds.
For now Atlantis remained in the hands of the expedition, but I knew that would change as I'd shared a lot of information with the Asgard, and those little grey people would find the remaining Ancients sooner rather than later. With their advanced medical tech even the Ancients currently in stasis on one of the Aurora class might be saved as well those Ancients who were right now flying between galaxies at near the speed of light.
By saving them the Asgard might just save themselves, preventing the extinction of two races, ascended beings didn't count, and I was free to explore this universe, and to gather more technology.
"What did Thor want this time?" Miranda asked me once we were sure the Wraith were gone "Haven't we given the Asgard enough?".
Actually we hadn't given the Asgard much of anything, at least not in terms of material value. I'd collected all those DNA samples for a purpose such as aiding the grey people in their attempts to save their race.
"To thank me" I told Miranda "One of the Asgard I met called Heimdall had a bit of a breakthrough".
Heimdall, an Asgard genetics expert was unlike some other Asgard, had a friendly, and enthusiastic attitude while dealing with Humans. She been the one to poke and prod me as part of her (she seemed female) research into genetics
"Turns out it might not be humans who are the key to saving the Asgard rather it's the asari" I said next "Apparently the large brain capacity combined with their longevity might mean a new Asgard clone that is much stronger, and the asari can reproduce without sexual intercourse so Heimdall".
From what I understood Heimdall was working towards a long term solution to the race's problems while other Asgard were going to deal with Vanir and work out something for the short term.
"Anyone I also agreed to hand over our Wraith prisoner" I informed Miss Lawson "None of us know enough about biology to make it worth while dissecting him, and frankly I wasn't willing to torture him for information, or fed him in exchange for it. The Asgard might have something that lets them simply download information from a person's mind without harming them, and their studies of genetics could benefit from a captured Wraith".
Miranda did not looked pleased.
"These beams weapons of theirs better be worth all this trouble" she commented.
Unlike most ship-based energy weapon systems, which are designed to fire individual pulses of energy, the Asgard plasma beam is a narrow, high-intensity beam of superheated plasma. These beams are capable of overloading and penetrating even the most advanced shields and burning through the hulls and internal structures of an enemy vessel with comparative ease, causing heavy damage.
Replicator made Aurora-class warships could easily be destroyed by these beams, which is why I wanted them, there was still a chance that the Replicators would start attacking human settlements.
One day the Tau'ri would have those weapons, and I wanted them first so that my companions could come up with some sort of defence against such powerful weapons.
"I'll ask about shield upgrades too" I said to Miranda.
Now that Atlantis was safe the Asgard would be able to start installing their upgrades, I wanted that done before we went after the Vanir, and before I started exploring any more galaxies.