If the Stargate Program were ever declassified and revealed to the world and the SGC mission reports then made public, Daniel was sure that there would be the fruit in those documents for a whole new genre of horror movies and horror novels.
The Goa'uld: sentient parasites that burrowed through your throat or the back of your neck and turned you into living puppets, trapped inside your own body until your long life finally came to a merciful end, years, decades, centuries, millennia later.
That creature thing that had eaten Marduk over and over again for the Stars only knew how long. (Jack had later explained the Mummy reference. A new movie had come out in 1999 after Daniel had left earth. It included flesh-eating bugs in the coffin with Imhotep, a change from the 1932 version that Daniel knew of. He was about as horrified by the presence of the Great Pyramids in Thebes of all places as he was by the cannibal bugs.)
Viruses that turned its victims into Neanderthals.
Evil doppelgangers from alternate universes.
Tech that was supposed to heal you, but also turned you into a nutty drug addict.
One could go down the list of nightmare-inducing scenarios that SG1 and the other SG teams had encountered over the years.
Daniel was of the mind to add the Replicating Ones to that list. It wasn't horror in the same sense as some of those other things, but semi-sentient metal bugs certainly had the existential-creepiness factor. They're like the Daleks or the Borg come to life! They were a real-life marauding horde looking to assimilate you.
And except for that one incident with Thor's flagship, the Replicating Ones were also supposed to be a scourge confined to Ida.
"Supposed to" being the key words.
Three months had passed since Anubis had revealed himself in the council of System Lords and subsequently tried to destroy earth with an asteroid, an attempt which failed … no thanks to the Asgard, and also upped his testing attacks on the Furlings. On Uslisgas, Xeux had come again, and fall was fast fading into winter. The brightly colored leaves were dropping, and there was a chill of frost heavily in the air.
A slate of meetings had drawn Sujanha away from the front, away from the ongoing campaigns against Morrigan and Manannan mac Lir, and now against Anubis' forces, as well. The revelation of Anubis' return had made such meetings all the more common these past three months, or so it seemed to Daniel. Anubis' technological superiority to the Goa'uld was giving the Furlings and the Asgard a proverbial headache (and literal ones, too!), and that it was Anubis himself that had come out of the woodwork was putting both the Rebel Jaffa and the Tok'ra on edge. Anubis is apparently a proverbial cockroach. You just can't kill him!
One afternoon, mid-week, Daniel was sitting in Sujanha's office at Headquarters, proof-reading one of her reports to the High Council for her because she had a pounding headache, while the Commander herself was (trying to) study a star-map spread out above her desk, her eyes pinched and brow furrowed. (Her headaches seemed to be becoming more of an issue these days, possibly in proportion to the number of new meetings.) At least, proofreading in Furling was no longer the utter monster it had originally been. Daniel couldn't say he was perfect at it, but Sujanha had looked through the report already, and she just wanted a second pair of eyes more than anything else.
Out of the blue, a rap of knuckles on her open office door drew Daniel's attention away from the spelling of one particularly complicated word. It was an interesting element of spelling in almost any language that he had studied that, sometimes, even if he was sure he knew how to spell a word correctly, if he stared at it too long, then it started to look just all wrong. Daniel looked up, and so did Sujanha, and both were quite surprised to see Wing Commander Sigurd standing in the doorway, a somewhat annoyed looking Jaax behind him.
Jaax didn't manage to beat him to the door to announce him.
I wonder what Sigurd's doing here.
I thought his strike-fleet was still in Avalon.
For a split second, Sujanha just stared at him, surprise clear in her face, long enough for Sigurd to gesture to the chair next to Daniel, a tacit request to join them. As he did so, Daniel realized that the other man actually looked … rather awful. His dark skin looked almost … grayish, his features exhausted, and there were dark circles under his pupil-less eyes. There were deep red, almost bruised, lines around his nose and mouth just in the shape of his breathing mask, though he wasn't wearing it currently. The Nafshi, unlike the Etrair, did not have to wear their breathing masks all the time off their homeworld and really could not—should not—as the tight seal of the masks could have an adverse effect on their skin overtime. As is evidenced now!
"What are you doing here?" Sujanha asked, her tone softening the words. "Your fleet is supposed to be in Avalon, dealing with Morrigan's forces." Though she would never play favorites among her commanders, Sigurd was still one of her most trusted commanders and one of the ones she liked the most.
Okay, he's one of her favorites.
She just doesn't play favorites with him or any others.
"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" replied Sigurd. He sounded as exhausted as he looked. If there had been a disaster, the news would have gotten to Sujanha already. That knowledge was still not particularly reassuring right at that moment.
It was interesting to note how the occasional bit of earth lingo had slipped into the speech of the Furlings who spent the most time around Sujanha and, thus, around Daniel. Even Sujanha does it occasionally. It was similar to how some of the Tok'ra who spent time with Jacob had started having earth idioms slip into their speech. Linguistic osmosis. Daniel had noticed how, as he became more and more fluent in and comfortable with Furling, Furling idioms and phrases had slipped into his speech, too. He wasn't reliant on just using English phrases and idioms translated into Furling.
Some things just don't translate worth a flip, anyway.
Like that, I can translate it literally, but it makes no sense to anyone here.
Sujanha sighed heavily and swiped the star map away, minimizing the hologram. "Why do I have a feeling that whatever news you have, it's not going to help my headache? Jaax, can you bring us more tea, please?"
"Of course, Commander!" The door to the hallway slid open with a low noise that Daniel could barely hear, and then Jaax's footsteps faded away. (Being a parent to a very energetic and mobile young son had made him hyper-aware of small noises and of silence. Silence is just as worrying as too much noise.)
Sujanha looked back at Sigurd. "Does your news have to do with why you're here and not in Avalon? And who is in command of your strike-fleet in your absence?"
Sigurd nodded. "Yes, Commander. I am sorry I was not able to send word of my return, but circumstances … the last day or so has been unexpectedly … complicated, but all has been resolved with no losses among my strike-fleet or the Army." What? What the h**l happened that involved both the Fleet and the Army and ended up with Sigurd back here, and how did nothing get to Sujanha if whatever happened, happened over the course of more than a day? "And Azar, who commands the Gladsheim, is in command of my strike-fleet in my absence."
Daniel did not recognize the name, but Sujanha seemed to from the way her shoulders relaxed just a fraction for a second, before the concern flooded back into her eyes from what Sigurd had revealed first. Her memory always amazed him. She had like … 750 or so ship commanders, and if she did not know all of them, she at least had a working knowledge of most of them.
They say the Gaetir have especially good memories because of their Asgardian blood.
Sujanha closed her eyes for a moment, an almost cringe-wince, and sighed just slightly, before opening her eyes and fixing her black gaze firmly on Sigurd. "What happened? In order and in detail, please."
"Well, to summarize, Commander," Sigurd began, "we believe that we have found an effective weapon for combating the Replicating Ones in fighting other than ship-to-ship combat with possible applications to that, as well, but I will leave that to the engineers and weapons-masters to determine." He said the one sentence in a rush, barely pausing for breath mid-way through.
Daniel started, his eyes going wide. That an effective solution for fighting the Replicating ones—they were a menace and very hard to kill … destroy … are they technically alive so that we could actually 'kill' them?—seemed to have been found was wonderful news. He just was not sure that he wanted to know how that solution had apparently been found in his home galaxy when, except for that one incident with the Beliskner, the Replicating Ones were an Ida problem.
(Furling weaponry—staff weapons and plasma cannons, especially, for non-ship-to-ship fighting—could be effective but was not consistently effective against the Replicating Ones, and it was that lack of consistency that was the problem. The Replicating Ones were, literally, what they ate, and super-heated plasma had more of an effect on some metallic materials than others.)
Sujanha looked just as shocked but troubled above all. "This happened in Avalon?" She asked as conformation, eerily calm apart from the look in her eyes.
Sigurd nodded and glanced at Daniel. "Your comrades on your old team are not blessed with good fortune." Oh, no. What happened now?! His gaze went back to Sujanha. "On a world called P3S-517 by the Midgardians—I have the gate address and it has already been flagged as dangerous—SG1 discovered a ravaged, dead world, whose only survivor was a single, undamaged, female-presenting android. From what we now know, she was the progenitor of the Replicating Ones."
"They actually originated in the Milky-Way, not Ida?" exclaimed Daniel, shocked.
"It seems so," Sigurd confirmed.
Sujanha made a vague, indeterminate sound almost like a thinking hmmmm. "So, they found this android," she said. "What happened then?"
"They brought it straight back to the SGC, instead of to a secondary world for security purposes." Sigurd's tone made it clear what he thought of that decision. Even I know that's risky! Security (and common sense) would suggest taking something like an android of unknown capability and allegiance NOT to your homeworld.
We would have helped. The SGC knows where our bases are.
"Oh, for Stars' sake!" Sujanha muttered with a heavy sigh. She muttered something else too softly for Daniel to catch the unfamiliar words. Not Furling. It had the tone of a curse or an imprecation, at least.
"Component blocks from the Replicating Ones were discovered on the world after the android was removed back to Midgard," Sigurd continued, "which led the scholars at Stargate Command to wonder if, as a highly advanced technological system which would have usually been hunted for by the Replicating Ones, she might have special features within her programming that kept her from being attacked. That hypothesis was soon proven null when a Replicating One was found within the quarters in which she was being held."
Replicating Ones IN the SGC?
Oh, bloody h**l.
Sigurd looked from Daniel to Sujanha and then away into the distance. "She called them her 'toys.'" Toys. Playthings for children to delight and entertain. That was what a toy was supposed to be. These toys? They had become monsters that destroyed and ravaged unknown numbers of worlds, ending civilizations, killing untold numbers of peoples from many civilizations.
Toys.
"How did these toys become a destroyer of worlds?" asked Sujanha quietly, horror in her eyes.
"Her world began to fear her for what she could do," replied Sigurd, "or so she told those who questioned her at the SGC. She taught her creations to replicate, to defend themselves and her against anyone who might try to harm them. Then she lost control. They destroyed her world … and left. The android suspended her programming and 'slept,' for lack of a better word, until awakened by the Midgardians."
"How long ago was this?" Daniel wondered aloud. "And how on earth did the Replicating Ones get from Avalon to Ida? Until the Beliskner, had you ever heard of them being a problem in Avalon?"
A mystery!
Sujanha shook her head. "After our departure from Avalon after the plague, I can only believe, since we never encountered the Replicating Ones before the Asgard's fights with them in Ida despite our travels across your home galaxy. I do not believe that the Asgard had encountered them before they made their presence known in Ida. How they traveled from Avalon to Ida is anyone's guess. They are capable of forming themselves into ships as well as taking over ships of other races. If they assimilated the technology to know how to form hyperdrive engines, even slow ones, they could have traversed the space between galaxies. Time … they are mechanical beings, capable of remaking themselves under many conditions. Time has not the same effect on them as it would on us."
Time … another destroyer of worlds.
That's one plausible explanation.
Might not be a mystery that we ever get an answer, too.
Even the android wouldn't know the answer.
Her … things were gone, and she went to sleep.
Sigurd made a face and then scrubbed one hand across his eyes tiredly. "Well, the android became paranoid, believing everyone was out to destroy her and her 'toys.' I didn't even know an android could be paranoid, but that is irrelevant. Forgive me, Commander. I am very tired."
Sujanha smiled gently. "There is nothing to forgive, Commander. Finish your account so you may go and get some much-needed rest."
Before you drop in your tracks!
"The android created an army of her creatures within the SGC from what materials could be assimilated there and attempted to escape via the Stargate, an attempt which was thwarted. General Hammond called us for help when she began to lose control, and the Replicating Ones tried to overrun the base. The extra defenses we helped add to the embarkation room worked against us here when she was barricaded inside, slowing our attempts to reach her. To make a long story short, we were forced to kill the android, and her death caused the Replicating Ones, which had not received 'fatal' damage already, to dissemble permanently. Several of Supreme Commander Anarr's soldiers and several members of the SGC received wounds, but no one was killed."
A miracle! Bloody h**l.
They must be having kittens.
An alien incursion that they let into the base!
"Thank the Maker," Sujanha murmured.
Sigurd nodded. "It was the Midgardian projectile guns that did the most consistent damage to the Replicating Ones and slowed their advance the most. We have taken the android's body to Ida for study, and I brought back some of the damaged and undamaged blocks to Asteria for study, along with guns and ammunition given with the complements of Stargate Command for our help."
Sigurd paused and then continued slowly, "We will need further study, but this could be the discovery we needed to more permanently slow the advance of the Replicating Ones, if not destroy them, if any fruits can be discovered from the android's body."
"A beneficial outcome," Sujanha replied, "though I wish it could have been discovered under better circumstances. Thank you for your assistance and your news, Sigurd. Go and rest."
Sigurd nodded and levered himself to his feet, bowed slightly, and then disappeared out the door.
"Guns!" Daniel exclaimed once the other man had left. "Who would have thought it?"
Sujanha snorted wryly. "A good reminder that the most advanced solution is not the best solution for every problem."
And hopefully the Asgard will find something during the … autopsy?
I wonder what they'll do with the … corpse? Yeah, corpse. Sigurd talked as if she was a living thing.
It's too bad. It would have been interesting to talk to a sentient android.
At least everyone at the SGC is … okay … by the standards of no permanent harm done.