Stargate: Genesis
Written By: The Ascended Ancient
Chapter VI: "Recovery"

General Hank Landry sat in his office going over reports from the Genesis Colony. What he read was not very good. Twenty-three colonists wished to return to Earth after the incident with those creatures, and the rest were uneasy about staying. Landry had sent more troops, but he wasn't sure what good that would do. People would become more and more frightened the longer they stayed there, and many would want to return. And, of course, the media would interview them, and they'd tell everyone about what happened. When that occurred, the small isolationist movement that had started up after the revelation of the Stargate would grow, and the international community would be hard-pressed to stand by their previous commitments.

The Stargate would be shut down, and Earth would be cut off from its off-world allies. The vast expanse of knowledge and resources humanity had gained access to would be shunned, and that would cause so much harm. The answers to some of humanity's greatest questions were out there. Already, researchers were using samples of plants found on P2A-294 to make a drug that was showing a potential to cure cancer. Things like this couldn't be shunned just because a few people were afraid, but that was exactly what would happen if this colony failed. Its success would make more people supportive of the Stargate, and its failure would do the exact opposite. And General Landry was not about to let it fail.

Suddenly, alarms all over the base began to blare, and the voice of the gate operator shouted, "Off world activation!" over the loudspeaker. In a heartbeat, Landry was out of his chair and on his way towards the control room.

Arriving there moments later, he stared out through the massive windows at the Stargate as it activated, and watched as the Iris closed over the event horizon.

"We're receiving an IDC," the operator announced. "It's S.G.-1."

"Open the Iris!" Landry ordered. The gate operator complied, pressing his hand down on the palm scanner. Immediately, the Iris opened, allowing the first people to step through.

They were colonists. An endless stream of colonists walking through the gate. As Landry watched this, he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Only a complete catastrophe could've brought this many colonists back to Earth. That meant the colony had failed.

"Escort them to quarters," Landry ordered a nearby sergeant. "And get the wounded to the infirmary."

"Yes, sir," the sergeant replied. Landry just stared out at the wave of people as they walked through the gate, wondering what the hell they were going to do now.

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On P4X-337, what had been the Genesis Colony was no more. It had transformed into something... else. Three concentric rings, conected by three coridors, surrounded a central spire that reached up high above the ground. Within the structure, the bodies of the people that had inhabited the colony were slowly broken down and transformed into Sallium before being remade into something terrible. Beneath the planet's surface, naturally occurring Naquadah deposits were slowly transforming into this substance as well.

Jeremy Spalding walked down the round corridors of his fortress, enjoying the feel of being powerful once more. Rounding a corner, he came across a young girl. She had been infected with Sallium during the takeover, but was not killed. Jeremy smiled and crouched down next to her.

"How are you?" he asked. The girl looked up at him, wide-eyed and afraid.

"It hurts," she said. "Where's my mommy?"

"I don't know where your mommy is," Jeremy told her as he stroked her hair. "But I do know that the transformation you're undergoing is slow and painful... when you're alive." He then grabbed her neck and twisted it sharply. The girl slumped down, dead.

"But it is far quicker when you're dead," Jeremy said with a smirk as he stood up and walked away.

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General Landry walked through the infirmary, looking around in sadness at the wounded. This is the end, he thought sadly. The public will never support this program after this.

"Sir," a male voice said. Landry turned to see Captain Reynolds sitting next to one of the beds. Lying on the bed was Colonel Crawford, a large bandage on the side of her head.

"What happened, captain?" the general asked.

"It was one of the colonists, sir," Reynolds replied. "Jeremy Spalding. He wasn't human. He was..." Reynolds trailed off as he searched for the right word. "Honestly, sir, I have no idea what he was. He attacked Colonel Crawford, and then the entire colony came alive. These... silvery... things, sir, they started to attack us. The governor and I gathered up as many people as we could and fled. Major Hailey and Lieutenant Banks did the same. We joined up and ran for the gate."

"I see," Landry said softly. "Well, you and the rest of your team will be debriefed at 1900."

"Yes, sir," Reynolds replied. Landry turned and walked away.

If it was one of the colonists, the general thought, then maybe this isn't going to have such serious repercussions.

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3 Days Later

At the Homeworld Defense Force Headquarters, a general meeting was in session to discuss the incident on the Genesis Colony. As he walked up to his podium, Director Jack O'Neill felt a wave of frustration was over him. He knew what the representatives would say. Ever since word of the disaster on the colony got out, public support of the Stargate Program had declined. The nations involved with the H.D.F. wanted to cut their political losses, which meant they'd be pushing an isolationist agenda here.

And unless I can convince them otherwise," O'Neill thought, this'll be the end of the Stargate Program. Clearing his throat, he began his speech.

"Representatives of the many nations that have joined forces to defend this planet," O'Neill said, using the standard introduction that he'd used in every speech he'd ever made. "We are here to review the facts of the incident on the Genesis Colony. Here is what we know." Jack pressed a button on the podium, and the lights dimmed. Above him, a projector came alive, displaying an image of Jeremy Spalding on the wall behind him.

"At approximately 2430 Standard Time on the Genesis Colony," O'Neill continued, "this man, Jeremy Spalding, attacked Colonel Leslie Crawford, the military commander of the mission. He attacked her using, and I'm quoting from the official report, 'long, thin tendrils of a silvery alloy'. Shortly after his attack on Ms. Crawford, nearly every building in the colony sprouted these silvery tendrils and began to attack the colonists. The military personnel stationed there did what they could, but in the end they were forced to evacuate with as many civilians as they could gather. They reached the Stargate without incident and dialed home."

"So," the French representative said, "this Jeremy Spalding was an alien, no?" Jack shrugged.

"I don't know what the hell he was," the director admitted. "He checked out all right. He had a birth certificate, a drivers license, a social security number. They were all legit, so no one questioned him on the mission."

"But these were all frauds, right?" the Canadian representative asked. Jack sighed.

"Possibly," he said. "But we can't find anything that suggests that."

"So, what are you saying, director?" Representative Chekov asked.

"I'm saying that this guy was legit," O'Neill replied. "Whatever he may have been and whatever he wanted, he wasn't some fraud."

"So, what do we know about him?" Chekov asked. Jack suppressed a sigh of relief. Chekov was, like always, steering the discussion in the direction Jack wanted it to go.

Even though their initial working relationship back at the S.G.C. had been... strenuous, the two had developed a mutual respect for one another. Here, at the H.D.F., Chekov was one of O'Neill's strongest supporters, something the director was quite thankful for.

"We know that he managed to seize total control of the colony in a matter of moments," Jack explained. "Most likely he'd been working on slowly seizing control the whole time he was there so that he could do it so quickly. As for what he was, our top scientists have analyzed samples of the material in those tentacles, and they've figured out a few things." Jack switched the image on the screen to some fancy, scientific report that he didn't even try to understand. "The stuff is some sort of mix of organic and inorganic compounds that gives off a low-frequency electrical charge. Other than that, we really know nothing."

"Isn't there anything else?" Chekov asked.

"I don't think..." Jack trailed off as he remembered. "Oh, yeah, there is. Um, one of our officers, Captain Daryl Reynolds, heard Mr. Spalding say something about the Alterans, the race that we call the Ancients. You know, the gate builders. So we've, um, forwarded all information we have on Spalding and that material via subspace burst to Atlantis. It should arrive there around this time tomorrow. We can only hope that they know more about what we're up against than we do."

"But what are we to tell our citizens?" the German representative asked. "We have to tell them something." Jack shrugged.

"Tell them that one of the colonists sabotaged the colony," he replied. "Say we don't know the specifics yet."

"But wouldn't that mean lying to them?" the British representative asked.

"Not entirely," Jack said. "And even if it was, it's not like we haven't lied to them before. I mean, we lied about the existence of the Stargate for decades. Why can't we lie about this for a few weeks?" There were mummers of approval from the crowd. Jack sighed.

I think I dodged the bullet here, he thought. At least, for now.

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Back at the S.G.C., Doctor Carolyn Lam walked into the office of General Landry, her father. She held in her hand the preliminary report on the patients who had returned from the Genesis Colony.

"So, doctor," Landry greeted her, "what do you have to tell me about these people?"

"Well, all of them possess that strange substance in their bloodstreams," Lam replied. "But, in all but one case, the substance exists only in small quantities, and it appears to be dormant."

"And in that one case?"

"Colonel Leslie Crawford," Carolyn told her father, pulling a piece of paper out of the file and handing it to him. "She has an extremely high concentration of this stuff in her frontal and temporal lobes, as well as minor traces of it throughout her body, and it's spreading at a rate that's increasing every second. I give it seven, maybe eight days before it's spread throughout her entire body."

"Is there any way to stop it?" Landry asked.

"Not as far as I know, sir," Carolyn replied.

"Very well," Landry said. "Good work, doctor."

"Thank you, sir." Carolyn turned around and walked out of Landry's office, leaving the general to look over the file she'd left him.

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On P4X-337, the ground just above what had been a major deposit of naquadah began to shake. The tremors became stronger and stronger, until, final, the ground split down the middle, and a massive, silvery bulge stretched out of it, pushing the Earth farther and farther apart. Finally, when the ground was pushed apart enough, the blob began to change shape. It flattened out and stretched forward as its shape became more defined. At one end, the silvery material split in two, each one arcing high above the rest of the blob. When it was finished, the substance hardened, and the new creation rose into the air. In the rear, two massive engines propelled the newly-formed ship higher, until it finally entered orbit. Out of the crater it left behind, smaller ships, shaped like tiny cones, formed and launched themselves as well.

Back in what had been the Genesis Colony, Jeremy Spalding opened his mind to his new creations. He felt their power and their strength, and he knew that it wouldn't be long now. Soon, his time would come. And when that happened, nothing would be able to stop him.