Author's Note: As originally stated I would not be following the Stargate Universe. I have included its tech, and personnel, with this chapter I bring in Destiny.
Finally, the day had arrived, O'Neill's body had grown to the desired level of maturity. Jackson, Vala, Teal'c, Carter, and Jon were all present for his consciousness to be merged over.
Loki spoke, "This procedure will only take a few minutes,"
They could see the neural link was not active and they waited patiently for it to complete. After about five minutes, Loki announced, "It is complete, give him a minute to come around,"
O'Neill suddenly opened his eyes, "Well this is interesting!"
"Jack!" as Carter gave him a giant hug and kiss.
"Have to say I've missed that!" replied O'Neill.
"Jack it is good to have you back!" cried Jackson.
"No kisses Daniel!" exclaimed O'Neill, Daniel gave him a big hug.
"It good to see you again O'Neill," replied Teal'c.
"Thanks, Teal'c," replied O'Neill.
"This seems a little unfair you get a number of years taken off," replied Jon.
"You got far more years than I did," replied O'Neill.
Rest of the day was spent resting and seeing people again. O'Neill took the day off, as Loki suggested it would take him a day or two to become fully familiar with his body. O'Neill had not felt this good in a number of years. His knees were in the best shape of his life. Jack had a little secret with the genetic manipulation he did himself, but he would keep that to himself for now.
The next day Hades was preparing to launch for Destiny. Jackson was excited to learn what secrets Destiny may hold. Dr. Simpson and Dr. Rush were prepared with the nanites to repair destiny. An adequate supply of raw materials was available for any repairs.
Finally Col. Lorne had the Hades ready to launch. The wormhole drive activated. An additional four jumps would be necessary to put the Hades at five billion lightyears from Earth. The farthest any human had ever traveled.
"Do we have any telemetry from the Destiny yet?" asked Lorne.
Hayley responded, "Just coming in over subspace. It's in F.T.L. and still traveling. Once it drops out we will have coordinates."
Mitchell stayed on the bridge with Hayley waiting on telemetry to come in from Destiny. Jackson was spending most of his time explaining to Vala why they couldn't be taking things. Dr. Rush and Dr. Simpson were marveling at the wonders to the galaxies that laid out in front of them. The Hades vantage point outside of the galaxy gave it an incredible view.
Finally, after two days of waiting, Destiny dropped out of F.T.L. Hayley received the coordinates, and Lorne ordered an immediate jump to the ship. When they exited the wormhole, they could see Destiny in a swarm of ships attacking.
"Battle Stations!" cried Lorne.
"Sir, sensors are reporting approximately two hundred of these smaller ships, and a single larger ship out on the outskirts," replied Hayley.
"Try haling them," ordered Lorne.
"Sir, three dozen of the smaller ships have broken off and are targeting us," replied Hayley, "Sensors are not detecting any life signs, on any of the ships."
"This is the Taur'i ship Hades, we come in peace, the ship you are attacking is a deralect we have a claim too," replied Lorne.
The first wave of drones fired on Hades. The combined power of a dozen drones failed to make an impact on Hade's shield. The remaining two dozen drones formed together into one wave, firing.
Hayley replied "Sir our shields noticed that hit, but are holding. A larger wave, we will start seeing a drain on our shields."
Lorne asked, "Nothing in reply to our hale?"
"No sir!" replied Hayley.
"Are you sure there are no life signs?" asked Lorne.
"Yes sir, nothing at all," replied Hayley.
"Col. Mitchell, please target and destroy that last wave of ships," ordered Lorne.
"Yes sir!" replied Mitchell. Who targeted and fired the plasma cannons. Destroying the drones. At that point, all remaining drones broke off the attack on the Destiny and targeted the Hades.
"Sir they are all coming at us," replied Hayley.
"Col. Mitchell take them out," ordered Lorne. Mitchell triggered the targeting computer and rapid fire from the one hundred plasma cannons were cleaning them up.
Mitchell announced, "Sir the large ship is pulling away!"
"Let it go! Maybe this will send a clear message not to mess with us, or the Destiny again," replied Lorne.
The Hades matched course and speed with Destiny. Col. Mitchell gathered his teams to be ready to board Destiny. They would have four teams that would sweep out across destiny in pre-assigned paths to clear the ship.
"Col. Mitchell you have a go," ordered Lorne. Mitchell and his teams beamed down to their coordinates within Destiny.
Ten hours later Destiny had been cleared. Hayley brought up life support in the gate room, using the auxiliary control room. The air was stale and had a particular burnt electronics odor to it. Dr. Rush and Dr. Simpson beamed in, with their nanites.
"How long to repair the ship?" asked Mitchell.
"It's going to take some time, she has been through a lot," replied Dr. Rush.
"Entire sections of the hull are missing," replied Dr. Simpson, "First they need to seal the hole in that shuttle that is venting atmosphere."
"SG-5 you are to be Dr. Simpson escorts at all times, SG-9 your Dr. Rush's. Do not let them out of your sight," ordered Mitchell.
"Captain Hayley is that the countdown clock?" asked Mitchell.
"Yes sir, we have four hours remaining before we jump to F.T.L. again," replied Hayley.
"The gate here do we have control of it?" asked Jackson.
"More importantly, do we have a way to prevent anyone from coming through?" asked Vala.
"The answer to Dr. Jackson is yes, and Vala your answer is no," replied Hayley.
Four hours later Destiny jumped to F.T.L. Hades hung back watching for telemetry for Destiny to drop out of F.T.L. where they would then jump to. On board, the nanites had patched up the shuttle, repairing the hull breach, and the shuttle doors that failed to close correctly. Life support systems in the immediate vicinity of the Gate were repaired, then extended out to repair all hull breaches. Hayley and Jackson spent considerable time going through Destiny logs. Dr. Simpson and Dr. Rush spent as much of their time in the logs as they could, when not reprogramming the nanites.
Three days later Destiny dropped out of F.T.L. again. Mitchell could see the drones were waiting on them. This appeared to be a smaller group of drones, only about fifty. They were making a run for Destiny immediately. Then he could see a wormhole appear and the Hades exit it. Sweeping down they immediately opened fire on the drones and then turned to target the larger ship at the edge. This time the ship did not escape.
"Let's get the shields repaired and the new power system online as soon as possible. I want us to be prepared when we meet those drones again," ordered Mitchell.
"I have bumped the priority on the shields to number one, and the Interdimensional Energy Collector to number two," replied Dr. Rush.
"Col. Mitchell, this is Col. Lorne, we have located one of the ships disabled, we are bringing it onboard for further investigation," spoke Lorne over the communicator.
"Roger that. Please let us know what you find. We are getting Destiny's shields and power systems upgraded now. We need to be prepared, as it seems these ships are located everywhere," replied Mitchell.
"If Captain Hayley isn't too busy we could use her assistance," replied Lorne.
"Will send her to you as soon as I can," replied Mitchell.
Mitchell found Hayley in the auxiliary control room.
"Captain, Col. Lorne could use your assistance on the Hades, studying one those ships," spoke Mitchell.
Daniel looked up, "Well we have already learned a lot about them from the logs. It appears Destiny has been encountering them for the past ten years. They appear to have inter-galactic engines as well. The past three galaxies that destiny has visited have these ships in them. They attack Destiny on sight, there is no attempts at communication. Destiny's weapon system was able to defend it for a number of years until they were able to disable the last of the weapons two years ago. Since then it's been the shields that have held her together. Our timing couldn't be better, as I don't think she could take much more."
"I'll report to the Hades immediately sir!" replied Hayley. As she left to head back to the gateroom.
"Dr. Jackson have we learned anything more from the logs?" asked Mitchell.
"Well, we are not the first ones on this ship. It seems over the years a number of races have found a way onto the ship. They couldn't understand the technology and left it alone. There does seem to be one race who at least has some understanding of the ship. They have been able to alter the course some," replied Jackson.
"Anything of value they have taken," replied Vala.
"The value of Destiny is this log. I don't know why it wasn't transmitted back to Atlantis like the planetary information. We should see about sending this information back. It will keep everyone busy for years studying everything here," replied Jackson.
Later on the Hades, Captain Hayley is investigating the remains of one of the ships.
"This ship is using an unusual power supply. Nothing like we have seen before. There is no room for an operator. It has to be some sort of drone. Probably controlled by the larger ship. It's basically thrusters, attached to a power supply and a single weapon. Some sort of plasma cannon and rail-gun combination" replied Hayley.
"How much of a threat does it pose to Destiny and Hades?" asked Lorne.
"A single one of these ships could do very little. It's the swarms when you get a hundred of these, or even more, it would really start to cause damage. A thousand of these ships would be a decent threat even to the Hades. Just depends on how many they can send at once," replied Hayley.
"OK you said they were remotely controlled, can we interfere with that?" asked Lorne.
"I have to study this ship longer to determine how they communicate, to see if we can cause interference," replied Hayley.
"Get to it, find me a way to block these ships, or at least communicate with them," ordered Lorne.
"Yes sir!" replied Hayley.
Two hours later, Col. Lorne and Col. Mitchell was on the Hades opening a communication channel to Commander O'Neill.
"Hello, kiddos! Good news to report I hope?" asked O'Neill.
"Sorry, sir. We have encountered a new technology that is sending out drone ships from something like a command ship. They were attacking Destiny when we arrived, we destroyed about two hundred of the drones, but the command ship got away. After the next F.T.L. jump by Destiny, she came out and they were waiting on her," replied Lorne.
"That does not sound good. How could they know where she was going to drop out of F.T.L.?" asked O'Neill.
"We are still trying to determine that sir," replied Lorne.
"OK, Colonel keep up what you are doing, try to find a way to communicate with them, and let's not start another war. Col. Mitchell how is the Destiny?" asked O'Neill.
"She's banged up badly sir. We have nearly all of the hull breaches repaired. Shields are nearly repaired, and the new power supply is proving to be a bit difficult, apparently, it's not as capable as the systems on Atlantis. Dr. Simpson and Dr. Rush are working on it," replied Mitchell.
"Let us know if we can provide any assistance that you need," replied O'Neill.
"Thank you, sir! We will let you," replied Mitchell.
Two days later Haley reported to Colonel Mitchell, "Sir I have completed my analysis of these drones."
"The power supply is very similar to our Interdimensional Energy Collector. They are not as efficient as ours but capable of extremely high energies. Their weapon system is single plasma cannon. The energy is directly converted and produces an extremely strong blast. The thrusters are sub-light engines capable of sixty percent the speed of light. I would not want to meet a large number of these drones at once, even in the Hades," replied Hayley.
"So an alien race close in technology level to us. That is not good," replied Mitchell.
"I found some writing on the drone, I have asked Dr. Jackson to examine them," replied Hayley.
"Good idea," replied Mitchell, "Let me know what he finds."
"Also found a subspace receiver. It appears to be how the drone is controlled. I am working on cracking the subspace signal it uses," replied Hayley.
"Can we block it?" asked Mitchell.
"I believe we can use the technology from the Hyperspace Disruptor satellites to do the same to subspace," replied Hayley.
"Setup us up a system to do that," ordered Mitchell.
"Yes sir!" replied Hayey.
A few hours later Jackson called for Micthell to come to the auxiliary control room. As Mitchell walked in he saw a video communication with Thor cut off.
"I know who created the drones," replied Jackson.
"Who?" asked Mitchell.
"It's the Furlings. I recognized the writing, and after discussing it with Thor it makes a lot of sense. Thor found a habitable planet for the Furlings in the galaxy that Destiny had previously visited. The writing on the drones matches the language of the Furlings. In addition, Thor sent a probe to that planet the video returned appears to match the technology of the drone," replied Jackson.
"So the Furlings reached this level of technology and created this drone system. Surely they have someone controlling it," replied Mitchell.
"According to Thor, the planet he found looked like a war had taken place. According to him, the Furlings were known for creating automated systems," replied Jackson.
"So what do we do? Keep destroying these things, and possibly piss off the Furlings if they are still around. Or we destroy the last of their legacy?" asked Mitchell.
"How about we let Thor complete his investigation of the Furling world and see what he can learn. Maybe a way to shut them down, or someone who is still in control of them if any," replied Jackson.
The next day Mitchell was meeting with Simpson and Rush on the state of repairs to Destiny.
"We've tried everything, Destiny isn't designed to support the kind of conduits that are required for the Interdimensional Energy Collector," spoke Rush.
"Right now we are dependent on energy collection system built into Destiny We would have to build an entirely new Destiny in order to incorporate the new power systems," replied Simpson.
"Can we get the existing power system back to one hundred percent?" asked Mitchell.
"We are going to need more neutronium. Lots more!" replied Rush.
"Ok, we will request raw neutronium from Atlantis, when the Stargate is ready to operate," replied Mitchell.
"Then that is right now. The stargate is fully functional if Atlantis is opening the gate to Destiny," replied Simpson.
"Then I will request it immediately. Continue on with the other repairs," replied Mitchell.
