Jump Chain Gothic 4 - Atlantis - Part 5

Aurora-class Battleship. Pegasus Galaxy.

There was plenty of space on board my massive warship, and former Borg drone known as Seven of Nine was taking full advantage of that fact by having just set up another science lab. Clearly this lab was dedicated to the study of small scale weaponry, this was easy to tell as there were many held held weapons scattered all over the room.

Some were in pieces, and hopefully she could put them back together as they were all unique, at least in this reality, while others were being kept in display cases, a few were inside machines of some kind, which I assumed were being used to take detailed scans of the devices.

This lab involved research of a kind different to what Seven often got up to, normally she liked to study stuff like cosmic phenomena, and sometimes people, as part of her efforts to advance towards perfection. Until now she'd never shown much interest in weapons, unlike Cameron, who was already taking a look around, and myself.

I not only liked to study and create weapons, I also liked to fire them as well as collect them, my Cosmic Warehouse was filled with boxes which mostly contained weapons that I'd gathered during my time in the Delta Quadrant. Of course I'd also gathered lots of information which was stored on Prothean data discs, as well odd bits of technology that could come in handy one day.

The weapons currently being studied by Seven came from many cultures and a few different universes. Mostly she was studying Wraith weapons with the intent of coming up with some sort of defence.

If we, and by that I meant she, could come with some easily to produce body armour that could absorb the energy of Wraith weapons, that would be a big help for the people in Atlantis. My group didn't need to worry about that so much as our environmental shields would offer us some protection against Wraith stunners, as long as we didn't stand around letting ourselves get shot.

"I have began studying Wraith technology" Seven of Nine informed me, once she acknowledged my presence "However I have not been able to learn much as Wraith technology is biological in nature, and I do not have much experience with biotech".

Many pieces of Wraith technology, including their ships, were a hybrid of organic and mechanical parts with the ability to heal damage. How this worked, or even why the Wraith would bother to develop this technology given its disadvantages, were total mysteries to us. Although there must be some reason. However given how little the Wraith were understood we might never figure it out.

The cyborg directed my attention to a Wraith weapon, which was a counter next to many tools, I wasn't sure if she been taking it apart or performing an autopsy.

She must have recovered this stunner from the crashed Wraith supply ship, this meant the weapon was more than ten thousand years old, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it had been working order until Seven had started dissecting it.

"This is a Wraith blaster, a hand-held versions of the larger Wraith stunner, which is used by their warrior caste" Seven began by saying "They are typically carried by commanders, such as the one we have in custody, and other high ranking Wraith".

A Wraith Commander was a high-ranking Wraith like Todd. I wasn't sure, but I suspected that the commanders all had tattoos on their faces as some kind of rank insignia, it was unlikely to be for decoration as the Wraith didn't seem to have any art. Not all of the Wraith who weren't of the warrior cast had these markings, so I assumed that they were of a lower rank.

The Wraith who I was calling "The Defiant One", who was currently in a cell, had to be a high ranking commander of some kind, although if he was it seemed odd that he'd been on a supply ship. Also he seemed to belong to a different era judging by how differently he was dressed. "The Defiant One" wore armour, when other Wraith simply wore dark clothing. From what I remembered in the show, he was much tougher than other Wraith too.

I could have asked "The Defiant One" why he was different from the other Wraith, but I doubted he would tell me, and even I had been willing to torture him, which I wasn't, I wasn't foolish enough to enter the brig while he was in there. Nor did I want to execute a POW, as while I might be a killer I was no murderer.

My thinking was that it was best to let hold until more people from Earth turned up and then let them try to question the "The Defiant One" if they dared. If they didn't take him I would have to set him free at some point. Perhaps even return him to his people.

"Wraith grenades are egg-shaped explosives used by Wraith warriors. When activated, they set off a timer, resulting in detonation" Seven told me as she gestured to one of the explosive devices which she had recovered "They are also used as pressure sensitive mines. The weapon is somewhat out of character for the Wraith, as they normally stun people in order to capture or feed upon them".

The device was from the time when the Wraith fought the Ancients in a proper war, now they were more like farmers than soldiers, the humans of this galaxy simply weren't a threat. At least not that required the Wraith's most deadly weapons. As such it made some sense that they'd stopped using such deadly weapons.

"Unfortunately the crashed Wraith supply ship was not carrying much in the way of useful technology" Seven informed me "and I didn't have much time to recover anything from the cruiser".

Seven had whipped up a nasty gas and then as planned she'd pretty much fumigated the crashed cruiser, however since we'd had no way of knowing how tough the Wraith Queen was Seven had used a very toxic gas, in fact it was so toxic that it had killed the cruiser. Wraith ships were in some sense living things as such could be killed.

The gas had done its job very quickly, and had been easily rendered harmless, allowing Seven and some of the robots to board the cruiser so it could be studied. But she hadn't been able to stay for long as the hull had started to give in.

At least this course of action meant that the Wraith Queen hadn't been able to fed on anyone or threaten Atlantis, and with the drilling platform up and running the city had some extra power.

It was a little out of character for Seven to gas people to death, but she'd known that the Queen was a direct threat to the hundreds of folks living in Atlantis, and also the countless humans in this galaxy.

"Well all we need is some sort of basic body armour to help protect against stunners" I said to the cyborg "If things go as they did in the show then the Wraith will try to take the city by force using troops, and while they held them off in the show, we can't be certain things will work out as well. We need to give them some advantages".

After saying that I left the lab, allowing Seven of Nine to get on with her work, but before I got fully out of the room she spoke.

"Do not forget that we have a date this evening" the cyborg reminded "I will be making you dinner in my quarters, and then we will spend the night together, please do not be late".

Seven had decided that we at least attempt to date, and it wasn't that hard to do so when you had a holodeck. Still we were busy people, which made it hard to socialise, but we made an effort.

"I'll see you tonight" I said.

At this point I couldn't help grinning. I was looking forward to dinner. Well actually I was looking forward to what would happen after dinner.

(Line Break)

Aurora-class Battleship. Pegasus Galaxy.

Two weeks went by in what seemed to be no time at all, and while the upgraded defence platform wasn't able to take out all three Hive Ships, it did take out two before being destroyed and my vessel took out the third with a salvo of drones, and when that happened the cruisers simply ran away.

Since then nothing had happened, but I knew it soon would, more Hive ships were on the way, but I wasn't too worried as we still had the teleporting bombs trick to call upon, and my women were working on plan that involved having me use the control chair to remotely fly cloaked Puddle Jumpers that had bombs on board, the idea being to fly them inside a Hive when they launched the darts, and then somehow remotely denote the bombs.

Alas that was turning out to be a lot more complex that it sounded. Puddle Jumpers simply weren't meant to be remotely controlled, and my ship simply couldn't take on more than one or maybe two Hives at the same time. So by the looks of things the fake self destruct was the only option. But we weren't quite there just yet. For now the Wraith were still days away.

Because so far there had been no siege the military forces that had taken over Atlantis recently hadn't been of any use to anyone, and lacking anything to do they were easy to ignore, at least by my group. The only way they could threaten me was to fly a Puddle Jumper with a nuke on board into my ship's hanger bay, which wouldn't work as we could detect cloaked Puddle Jumpers and nukes.

Since I'd destroyed the Hive Ships before they got too close to Atlantis the military people had never deployed nukes as space mines, which was a stupid idea in any case. Not that nukes worried me as I had ZPM boosted shields.

"A ship is exiting hyperspace" reported Seven of Nine from her science station.

It was The Daedalus the first BC-304 produced by the Tau'ri, the people of Earth, and the second generation of interstellar capital ship developed by the United States military. In the show the ship's mission had mostly been to ferry equipment and personnel between Earth and Atlantis, while also assisting the Atlantis expedition as needed. I also remembered that it was the under the command of Colonel Steven Caldwell.

"We've been expecting it" I said to Seven "Its the Earth ship I mentioned".

She was already scanning, while bringing up the file I'd put together on the ship. It was down right amazing how much I could remember about all these science fiction franchises.

"The Daedalus is armed with 32 Railguns, that are no threat to use as long as we have our shields up, and minimal danger without it" Seven soon reported "I can detect a number of nuclear warheads, and a bay of smaller craft. Most likely those F-302 fighter-interceptors mentioned in your files".

So far it matched up with what I remembered. This was the Daedalus before it was upgraded with Asgard weapons, meaning that it wasn't a direct threat to powerful ships such as my Aurora-class or a Wraith Hive Ship. Once it had used the teleporting bomb trick a few times and the Wraith figured out how to jamm transporters, the Daedalus wouldn't be much of a threat to the Wraith Hive ships.

"It also possesses what I assume to be Asgard shields, which they have raised" Seven let me know "I can not be certain if our drone weapons will be able to bypass this barrier, and since they have beaming technology I advise raising our own shields".

Turning my chair I looked over a Cameron who as she often did, managed the weapon's station.

"Raise the shields, but keep our weapons off" I ordered "No sense antagonising our new allies".

In truth the US Military didn't interest me much. Sure poking around their ship might be worthwhile since parts of it were backenginnered from Goa'uld tech, but since those parasites mostly used backenginnered Ancient tech, which I had plenty of access to, exploring that ship's systems would be of minimal value.

Of far more interest to me was the Asgard engineering expert that had been provided to monitor the ship's systems. He was the means to contacting his people, and they were allies of great value.

"Miranda hail them" was my next command "and tell them with some information for the Asgard that is a board their ship. If you get a connection send over the data packet".

The data packet was an overview of all the information I'd gather about human and alien biology over the years, including info on genetic engineering, which given the problems the Asgard were having, should get their attention. I would trade all the data I had on biology and all my samples in exchange for the Asgard sharing just some of their tech with me.

(Line Break)

Meeting Room. Atlantis.

"Now that everyone is seated we can begin" Caldwell said after the doors closed.

There was a moment of silence as most of the people in this room were used to their leader starting these meetings. Before long the Colonel realised that he would have to allow Weir to take control if anything was going to get done. The problem with that was she wasn't a great fan of the military right now, and she seemed content to just sit there.

"Doctor Weir" the Colonel said

"Yes?" was her reply.

Caldwell suppressed a sigh.

"I couldn't help noticing the Ancient war ship in orbit and the total lack of Wraith Hives in the system" he said "Can I assume that the two are connected".

Weir went on to explain recent events, going into great detail about how their ally had aided them, and how the attacking Wraith Hives had been destroyed before they could even get into weapon's range of Atlantis.

"Do you think this Gothic can be trusted" the Colonel asked next.

Weir took a moment before answering the question.

"He seems a good person, but I can tell that he's not telling us everything, he knows more than what he's told us, but he has mentioned specific things that came in very useful, like the satellites" she was now saying "I'm not saying that he will betray us, he has helped us a lot, but he may know more, stuff he doesn't want to tell us".

Everyone stayed pensive for a few moments before Caldwell continued the conversation.

"Well, I won't say that I'm happy that we have an ally we don't know that well with a warship in orbit of this planet, but as long as he continues to help us, I don't see any reason to rock the boat" said the airforce officer "But I can't say the same for IOA, because of the that the threat of the Wraith they want all the advantages that we can get. I wouldn't be surprised if they start making demands of this Gothic person".

There was a moment of silence as people worried about the IOA screwing things up.

"Moving on, we have to deal with the 23 Hive ships moving towards Atlantis" Weir said, desiring a change of subject "they will reach in less than a week and we need plans".

(Line Break)

The Daedalus. Pegasus Galaxy.

One moment I'd been working on something on my shipo, and next thing I knew I had an Asgard in front of me. I'd been abducted off my ship. Cameron would not happy when she found out. I wasn't happy now, I was going to have to look into some of transporter blocker than I could easily turn on and off.

"Greetings, I'm Hermiod of the Asgard" he/she/it said.

This Hermiod sounded male, but if I recalled correctly they were genderless clones, in fact the grey being before didn't have any sexual characteristics at all, and since it was naked I'd have been able to tell if it did.

There were other people around, humans dressed in jumpsuits of some sort, and they were pretending not to be looking at me. I wondered if there were any armed guards around. I couldn't see any, but there could be an entire squad of marines outside of this room ready to come in and shoot me.

"Hello" I replied "Did you want something?".

He stayed there for a full minute, just looking at me with those black eyes and slowly blinking from time to time.

Of course I knew why he'd beamed me over, I just didn't want to sound too eager to help, right now I had something to Asgard needed, and in order to get something worthwhile in exchange I would have to negotiate like a pro. Thankfully I'd gained diplomatic skills from the Voyager Jump, which had come in handy when I'd dealt with Weir.

"I received the data you sent, and forwarded it to my people" the alien informed me "As a result the Asgard High Council wishes to speak with you".

Well that made sense, not only did I have information of human genetics that could be of use to them I also an Ancient warship, that had to be a concern.

"Okay well call them on the space skype, or whatever it is you use to call home" I said.

It blinked at me some more.

"They want to talk to you in person" I was told.

Wow really. Things were moving fast.

"You will go through the Stargate, I have with me a small power source that will allow the stargate to open to our new homeworld" the alien said.

While that sounded like fun, it wasn't very practical.

"I can't leave my ship and crew behind" I said to the alien lifeform "I don't trust the US Military, they might try to seize my ship".

The little grey person didn't seem concerned.

"The Asgard Council had already talked with the IOA of Earth" it said "They were informed that Asgard have taken an interest in you, and that any action taken against your group would be most unwise".

From this I gathered that Asgard were desperate for my help, and that wanted something more from me than mere data.

"I see, well then, I'm good to go, but you should let me contact...

Before I could move I was beamed down to Atlantis

"... my bodyguard.

I was now in front of the Stargate, watching as it activated. This was going to be the first time that I used one, and I was extremely scared and excited at the same time. I understood that it wasn't that different than a transporter in that the Stargate would break my body down, send it to the gate on the other end of the connection via a wormhole, and resemble me on the side. However it was quite another thing knowing that when you were about to experience it.

Still I'd gone through a lot since I'd started Jump Chain, and I knew that it was important to stay focused. I used my communicator to let Miranda know that I could be gone for a few days, and that she was in charge while I was gone. I also had Cameron beam down as going without her would just upset her, and it was never a good idea to have a cybernetic killing machine upset with you.

Once that was all done I stepped into the puddle, and then I was somewhere else, there was no CGI, or anything. I might as well have stepped through an open doorway. Which was odd because I was sure that going through the Stargate was suppose to be a bit rough on person. I could only assume that the Pegasus Stargates, which were a newer model, made for a smoother ride.

One of the many Asgard, the closest to me, move forward and extend a small hand

"Welcome to Orilla, the last home of the Asgard" it said.

I didn't like the sound of 'the last home of the Asgard' it made it seem as if they had already given up.

"Follow me, the Council is waiting" the tiny alien said.

I followed the small xenos through the hallways while the other Asgard just watched me pass by, and while I could hear murmurs, I couldn't hear anything clearly enough to understand what they were talking about. Not that I really needed to do, I didn't imagine they saw humans working these corridors very often.

Before long we reached a big set of double doors at the end of one massive hallway. Given the size of the Asgard, and the fact that they had such small legs the corridors and doors seemed bigger than they should be. Perhaps the style for these buildings was taken from when they'd been taller. Also I noted that unlike the Ancients, the Asgard preferred to use some kind of stone as their main building material.

"Please, enter when ready" my guide said before leaving me there.

When I entered the chamber I saw a room full of aliens who sat on seats that allowed them to look down on me, each Asgard had on a pendant of different colour. Probably to differentiate their positions on the Council.

"You have been summoned by the Asgard High Council so we can discuss an alliance" one of them said. "We brought you here, because our race is dying, we have a problem with the genetic degradation of our cloned bodies and we would like to ask for your help"

Well I hadn't really expect this. Of course I wanted to help them and I was going to offer it, but I hadn't expected such a big deal. I'd imagined that the information I'd gathered on biological matters might be useful when combined with their own research, and that they'd offer something of value in trade for it, but this seemed to be a much bigger deal than I'd anticipated.

"For some time we have been seeking ways to combat our issue with genetic degradation" another grey person was now saying "While we have looked to humanity for aid in this matter we believe the information you possess could be the key. Also your own DNA, which has been genetically modified may be of use to us".

So something about my altered genes must have gotten their attention.

"I will help you as much as I can" was all I could say "I have information of future events that you need to know, and of course if you need DNA samples I can provide them".

The aliens all exchanged looks as I spoke again.

"There are a few future events you should be made aware of" I told the aliens.

If there was time I should mention that Doctor Jackson would make contact with the Ori and start a war, if the Asgard could find that Ancient communications device and destroy it many lives could be saved.

Plus there was the matter of their evil cousins in the Pegasus galaxy, they seemed to have come up with a solution for the whole genetic degradation issue. Even if The Asgard wouldn't use the same methods as their evil cousins, but they could still benefit from the research.

(Line Break)

Thor's Ship. Sol System.

I was starting to see why O'Niell liked the Asgard so much, these guys knew how to get shit done. Not only were they ready to ambush their evil cousins once they lured them to Atlantis by accessing the device in Janus's secret lab, which needed to be found first, but they were already preparing for an Ori invasion should our efforts to prevent it fail.

A way to avoid the Ori invasion was to grab the the long-range communication device, which was a two-way communications device which created a psychological and physiological link between the users on each end, swapping their minds into each other's bodies. It was originally created by the Alterans millions of years ago, before they left their home galaxy.

As for dealing with the evil Asgard that had to wait because it made no sense to involve the Vanir in affairs while a whole bunch of Wraith Hive ships were on their way to Atlantis. It was best not to complicate that issue.

The Ancient known as Myrddin (Merlin) had hollowed out the hill and created a vault. I didn't know much about it other than a person was only allowed entry only transportation rings. Which the Asgard got around by simply installing a set of rings. They must have had the technology for a while given how easily they could make us of it.

"So any idea how to deal with the holographic knight which defends the vault?" I enquired of Thor "I'm not much of swordsmen".

Outside of Star Wars, which I seriously considering for a future Jump, swordsmanship wasn't of much use. Still I couldn't help picturing myself battling the Wraith with a lightsaber, while Thor messed about with some machines.

The holographic guardian was a security measure that Merlin was known to employ. The hologram, which took the form of a medieval knight, was capable of delivering shocks, made up of some harmful energy to an enemy through a sword.

Since it was a hologram, projectile weapons were useless as the bullets would pass through the guardian, and I knew from my time on Voyager that even more advanced weapons wouldn't help you against a hologram, not unless you could target whatever device it was that the source of the hologram.

"I do not know if an Asgard will be able to enter this vault" Thor told me he passed me what seemed to be a small stone "So you must go, and once inside use this stone, it will enhance your memories, and allow to defeat the defences Merlin put in place".

This was why Cameron wasn't coming along. Aside from the fact that the Asgard had valid reasons not to trust intelligent machines, there was also the possibility that the vault's defences might be triggered by the presence of Cameron.

"At some point we must also recover Merlin's research on the weapon which is designed to destroy ascended beings" Thor told me "The Asgard will build the weapon, and hide it away for the day it may be required".

That was how the Ori invasion was being prepared for. Should the Ori invade an Asgard ship would fly to their galaxy and use the device, but only if an invasion started. Of course we had to find which galaxy they came from, which was why we needed the book that could be found in the vault and that explained the origins of the Ancients.

Asgard ships were the only ones that could travel the kinds of distances that a vessel would need to traverse in order to make it to such a far distant galaxy. But given the sheer size of the universe and the number of galaxies out there, flying around looking without an idea of where to go would be futile.

Also the Sangraal, the weapon that could kill the Ori, wasn't actually on Earth, it had been destroyed, so in order to gain the device, we needed to follow a trail which started here. We'd have to find Merlin, and while he died in the show, the Asgard had much more advanced medical tech so they should be able fix him up, and then he could build the weapon for the Asgard to deploy if needs be.

How much of that I would be involved in I yet didn't know. I wasn't sure if the Asgard would trust me to the extent of letting me get my hands on something like the Sangraal. They might decide to work on getting the device with the aid of the humans from Earth, once they had enough information.

If they did I wouldn't mind much. I didn't have any use for the Sangraal, and I didn't want to antogise any ascended beings by owning one.

"As we discussed the treasure located in this vault will be given to British government along with an apology for intruding" Thor said next "The book you mentioned will of course be translated and a copy shall be given to you".

Since there was more than one long distance communication device out there, we didn't want the humans of Earth learning that Ancients had left people behind in another galaxy, as they might try to contact them. Because of this they would never see a copy of that book.

"Now stand on the platform" the small grey alien instructed.

As I did just that I realised that while I was used to go on missions that would decide the fate of a galaxy, I was still enough of a geek to smile like idiot at times like this.

"Okay here goes nothing" I said.

Some metal hops appeared and with a flash of light I was away.