John and Sammi sat at the breakfast table a few days later as they reviewed the files from the USB drive Maybourne had given to Sam. John was amazed at the amount of intel the weasel had pulled together in two years. Some of the information John himself had stolen; however, he had never seen the overall picture until now.
The Trust wasn't just trying to acquire and operate Ancient devices, they were attempting to develop a new advanced Ancient-Goa'uld technology.
Ancient technology required the Ancient gene, which was why John's involvement had been so easy to orchestrate. Goa'uld tech required the wielder to had naquadah in their blood. So far, the only way to achieve this was to currently be or have been a host. The Trust wanted to create a technology that only worked for someone possessing both markers. In essence, they wanted to create a "superior race" with the ability to operate superior weaponry.
Trust scientists had been unsuccessfully trying to insert an Ancient gene into Goa'uld hosts, but the results had been disastrous. Live symbiotes were driven insane by the addition of the artificially manufactured genome. While humans born with the Ancient gene could serve as a host, actually finding those individuals had proven increasingly difficult. People like Jack O'Neill and John Shepherd were rare. To build an entire army of such individuals capable of achieving the Trusts ultimate goal of galaxy domination would be impossible.
Until the day a Trust scientist embedded in the SGC made a discovery: Sam and Jack had succeeded where they had failed.
The unborn child was a genetic mixture of Ancient and human DNA, conceived naturally by two previous hosts, both of which carried trace amounts of naquadah in their blood. If Gracie was born with both Ancient and Goa'uld markers, then the Trust had found their golden goose.
"My god," Sammi breathed as the objective became crystal clear. The Trust wanted Gracie, but she could only provide blood and DNA for them to study. It would take years, if not decades, before Trust scientists could successfully clone her. But Sammi and John were already old enough to begin "manufacturing" the next set of genetic hybrids. The last entry into Maybourne's log indicated that while they preferred to have both clones, Sammi was their primary objective.
"Over my dead body," John slammed the laptop lid shut. "They won't touch you or the baby."
"No they won't," Jack agreed in a deadly voice from his seat across the table.
"So what do we do?" Sammi swallowed past the lump in her throat. She'd known the Trust was evil, but this was next level, System Lord meet the Ori kind of heinous.
"I've got a plan," Jack told them looking at John, "but your not going to like it."
"Is that why Sam's not here?" John's hard stare matched Jack's.
"Partly," Jack shrugged. "We agreed she needed to lay low."
"In other words, you pulled rank," Sammi earned her own hard stare. Unfortunately for Jack, she carried Sam's immunity to his colonel, now General-face. When she didn't blink or back down he rolled his eyes and mumbled something about Carter women.
"Why would you have to pull rank," John started to ask, "unless—No. Absolutely not. You will not use Sammi as bait!"
"Actually," Jack bristled, "I had planned to ship both Carters to Prometheus and use us as bait," he told him.
"Hey!" Sammi stood up with her hands in her hips.
"Settle down," Jack bit back a smile at her indignant look that had matched his wife's. "Sam vetoed that idea."
"Good," Sammi crossed her arms over her chest. "Because if John is bait then so am I."
"I'd prefer if neither one of you were bait," Jack sighed.
"It's the only logical way this ends," John stated what they all knew.
"I agree," Sammi looked at John, knowing it was killing him to even consider putting her in danger. "And it's the only way to end the threat to Gracie."
"Sam and I want you to understand what making this decision means. It's a huge risk," Jack looked between them. "You can still disappear. You'll always have targets on your backs, but we can get you off world and out of reach."
"Like we'd ever walk away," John scoffed. "You should know us better than that."
Jack pinned them both with a hard stare, only continuing once he was certain he wouldn't be able to change their minds.
"So what's the plan?" Sammi knew Jack and Sam had had a few more days to put a viable op together.
"Tell me, how do you feel about high school?"
Post notes: Well, hopefully you like the AU I've created for John and Sammi. This main storyline will be continued in A Tale of Two Clones: Part 2, but first there are some forthcoming shorts and one-shots about John and Sammi's new life. There are a lot of loose ends, but we are just getting started.
