We're Boned!
Part 6: I'll Take "Who the Hell Are You?" For 400, Alex
A palpable silence hung over the room. No one knew exactly what to say after such a shocking revelation. Simon had just dropped quite the bomb on the group. One of the strangers who seemed to have materialized out of thin air in the middle of resistance headquarters was apparently something of a celebrity back in New Caprica City, but Simon wasn't done dropping bombshells quite yet.
"No." He said finally, breaking the silence.
"No, what?" Starbuck asked.
"No, it can't be her."
"What do you mean it can't be her?" Tyrol asked harshly. "You just said it was. What, did you change your mind?"
Samantha Carter was quickly tiring of being talked about like she wasn't sitting right in front of them, but just as she started to say something Simon began again, "It looks like her." He said, "But it can't be."
"Why not?" Chief Tyrol asked, becoming rather annoyed by this whole conversation.
"She was seen in town again today," Simon explained, "not an hour before I left. There's no way she could have gotten here before me."
"Then there's more than one of her." The Chief declared. "So she is a Cylon." He concluded triumphantly.
"No." Simon replied. "She can't be a Cylon. When she showed up the toasters were as surprised as we were." Tyrol looked at him skeptically. "And that ship" he continued, "there is no way Cylons made that thing."
"Fine." Tyrol said, frustrated. "She's not a Cylon. They're not Cylons. Even better. That means we can kill them now and not worry about the toasters finding out where we are."
"What kind of thinking is that?" Starbuck asked.
"Sounds like a good plan to me." It was Demetrius, still keeping his one gun trained on the four prisoners. He glanced at the two resistance leaders. "I'm with the chief. Let's just-" He never got to finish his sentence. His moment of distraction was all that SG-1 needed.
Teal'c, moving with incredible speed, grabbed the gun out of Demetrius' hand, while simultaneously delivering a blow to the head that send the solidly-built man flying across the room. When he landed he was completely unconscious. Jack pushed past Tyrol, who was unarmed, and grabbed a P-90 from the table in the center of the room where the resistance members had stacked SG-1's gear. Daniel did the same, coming up with a zat gun while Carter tackled Kara Thrace who had begun to reach for her sidearm. They struggled for several moments, oblivious to anything else transpiring in the room. Starbuck's gun went flying, and the altercation might have continued if Teal'c hadn't 'grabbed the former viper pilot and placed Demetrius' pistol to her head.
SG-1 was now in complete control of the room, but there was no way to know how long that could last. Starbuck growled, "You have no idea what you've gotten yourselves into."
"We usually don't." O'Neill agreed.
"I could speak one word, and a dozen men would burst in here, guns blazing."
"Speak that word," Teal'c informed her calmly, "and you will never have the opportunity to speak another."
"You think your threats scare me, big guy?" Starbuck declared petulantly.
"Ok, look," Daniel said, his zat aimed in the general direction of Simon and Tyrol, "We're not your enemies here. We've been trying to get you to understand that."
"Well," the Chief said, indicating the guns they were holding, "this isn't helping your case."
"You were holding us prisoner!" Colonel O'Neill said. "How did you think we'd react to that?"
"You broke into our base!" Tyrol retorted. "How did you think that we'd react to that?
"We explained that to you." Jack said. "We-"
"Oh right," the Chief replied, "the magic mirror did it. I forgot. Do you seriously expect us to believe that?"
"Well," Jack said slowly. He glanced at Daniel who just shrugged his shoulders. They had to acknowledge that it did seem rather far-fetched.
"This isn't getting us anywhere." Carter declared. She turned to Starbuck who, despite their wrestling match, had been their advocate up till now. "Look, if we agree to lower our weapons, will you agree to talk with us? We have to trust each other, or this is all going to end very badly."
Starbuck looked at Tyrol. The look that he gave her told her that he wasn't happy about the situation, but they really didn't have a choice. "Ok." Starbuck said finally. "You put down your," she looked at the zat in Daniel's hands, "guns, and we all talk this out."
"It's weird how often this happens." The Colonel said, rather absently.
"Isn't it?" Daniel agreed.
"Ok, Teal'c," Sam said slowly, "let her go." Teal'c removed his arm from Starbuck who gave him a rather nasty look for his trouble. "Now, let's all lower our guns." The members of SG-1 complied, lowering their weapons but keeping a tight grip on them, in case things went wrong.
Starbuck watched them for a moment. Then, deciding to be a little bit bold, she walked over and picked up her own gun. The four members of SG-1 watched her do it but did not react. Seeing this she made her final decision. Placing her sidearm back in her holster she sauntered over to the table and plopped down into a chair. "Ok," she said, "talk."
The tension in the room subsided somewhat as Major Carter took the seat across from Starbuck, but it by no means disappeared. The table only had four chairs. Daniel and the Chief took the remaining two while Jack stood back, keeping a watchful eye.
Simon, who, during the heat of the moment, had relapsed into intense nervous shaking, walked over to check on Demetrius. Teal'c accompanied him. A cursory glance told the Jaffa that the large man was simply unconscious. "He will recover." Teal'c declared before walking back toward the table, leaving Simon to test that diagnosis for himself.
For the next hour Carter and Daniel explained to the leaders of the New Caprica resistance about the SGC, Earth, the Goa'uld, and the quantum mirror. Every now and then the Colonel would throw in a comment, but the rest of the room remained relatively quiet, aside from the occasional question.
"Ok," Tyrol said finally, "let's say we believe you, as incredible as your story is. None of this explains how you got here. Didn't you say that the mirror transfers you from one universe to another while still touching it? We've never seen one of these mirrors. There's definitely not one of them in there." He gestured toward the storage room where SG-1 had mysteriously materialized.
"Well," Carter replied, "I've been thinking about that. When we came into contact with the mirror I thought I heard the mirror shatter."
"I heard that too." Daniel agreed.
"As did I." Teal'c said.
Everyone looked at Jack expectantly. "I, uh, didn't notice." The looks became incredulous. "Hey," He said defensively, "I think I had more pressing concerns, like a 200 pound Jaffa on my back!"
"Regardless," Carter continued, "if the mirror was destroyed in the middle of transporting us between dimensions it could, theoretically, have deposited us anywhere. Maybe even any time."
"Any time?" Daniel asked.
"Well, theoretically." Sam replied.
"I hate when that happens." Jack said dejectedly.
"So how do we return?" Teal'c asked.
"That I don't know." Carter admitted.
"You ▒don't know'?" the Colonel repeated.
"We need more information, sir."
"As fascinating and sad as all of this is," Kara began, "it doesn't explain why you seem to have a twin sister flying around having secret meetings with the Cylons."
Carter had been expecting that to come up. "We've encountered quite a few alternate realities inhabited by duplicates of ourselves." She replied. "It's possible that, by some amazing coincidence, a Samantha Carter from this universe is visiting this planet right now."
"Whatever is going on, we're just as interested in getting to the bottom of it as you are." Colonel O'Neill declared.
"We still don't know if we can trust you." Starbuck said, "but I guess we don't have much of a choice. Besides, you seem to be pretty good in a fight," she glanced at Teal'c. "Ok, we're going."
"Going?" Tyrol asked. "Going where?"
"To the city." Starbuck replied. Then, before he could argue with her he continued. "The toasters have started taking our people, Chief. If we're going to do something we need to do it now."
Tyrol couldn't really argue with her on that. "And we're taking them?" He asked.
"We can use all the help we can get." Tyrol looked rather dour at the prospect of going into hostile territory with the four strangers. "Look at the bright side, Chief," Starbuck said, smiling, "maybe their crazy weapons will make good toaster toasters." Neither the sentiment nor the pun was much comfort.
As Simon led the party back toward the city, Kara answered SG-1's questions concerning the enemy they were about to face. "So what you're saying is that these machines have basically killed off the entire human race?" Daniel asked.
"Basically." Starbuck affirmed.
"If that's the case," Carter pointed out, "then why is anyone on this planet still alive?"
It was a good question, but it was also one that only the Cylons knew the answer to. "We don't know." Starbuck replied finally.
"Well, you know what they say about gift horses." Colonel O'Neill chimed in.
"What?" The Chief asked.
"Never mind." He turned back to Starbuck. "So up to now the robots have been playing the nice guy, but all of a sudden they're up to their old tricks again, is that it?"
"That's what we're going to find out." Starbuck knew that, aside from one possibility that she didn't want to contemplate, there was no reason for the Cylons to be taking people one by one. They needed to figure out what was going on.
The party was composed of eight people. Simon was in the lead followed closely by Tyrol and Starbuck. Behind them came the four newcomers from Stargate command, whose gear had been returned to them before they'd set out on the mission. Tasked with bringing up the rear, as well as keeping a watchful eye on the strangers from Earth was Demetrius, who was still somewhat worse for the wear after his encounter with Teal'c. He was a bit embarrassed that he had been taken by surprise so easily, and he was determined not to let it happen again. Unfortunately for him, that would be his last conscious thought.
Without warning bullets had begun flying from somewhere off in the woods that they were traversing. Demetrius was hit instantly and was dead before his body even landed on the leaves strewn across the hard ground. The rest of the party managed to dive behind some nearby rocks for cover.
"Cylon patrol!" Starbuck yelled. She popped up from behind the rocks and squeezed off a few rounds before ducking back down. "Two Centurians at 11 o'clock, up the slope about 20 meters. One more at two o'clock, about 30 meters."
O'Neill was impressed with proficiency, but this wasn't the time to mention it. "Weaknesses?" He asked Starbuck.
"You have to hit them in the head. If you don't take that out they'll keep firing."
"Good to know." The Colonel said. "Teal'c, Carter." He indicated that Teal'c should fire with him at the two Centurians up the slope and Carter should focus on the one down the slope. The three quickly got into position and then simultaneously came up from behind the rocks, firing for about 4 seconds before ducking back down.
Starbuck looked at Daniel, "How about you?"
"I'm, uh, more of a scientist." Daniel replied.
"Oh, great." Starbuck replied, with barely disguised disgust.
"Looks like the two uphill are staying put for now. We got one of them, winged the other one." Teal'c and O'Neill had managed to coordinate their fire on the first of the Centurians, obliterating his head with the high-speed barrage of bullets from their P-90s. The other one had taken cover behind a tree but not before the Colonel had managed to hit it in the arm, damaging one of its weapons.
"The other one is moving closer." Carter warned. "I hit him, but he's still coming."
Jack saw that Daniel had his zat out and looked like he wanted the opportunity to use it. Jack wasn't sure why. He'd missed the exchange between Daniel and Kara. "Give it a shot." He said.
Starbuck had missed the non-verbal part of that exchange and wasn't sure what the Colonel was referring to when she suddenly saw Daniel jump up. Jackson managed to squeeze off a few shots, hitting with two of them before a barrage of bullets forced him back down behind the rock. "Hit him twice." Daniel said.
"And?" Jack asked. Then renewed firing seemingly answered his question for him.
"Still coming." Daniel confirmed. After a moment's consideration he made a decision. "One more time." He said, renewing his grip on the zat gun.
"Why?!" Starbuck demanded. It was obvious to her that whatever that strange weapon did, it didn't have any effect on the Centurians.
Ignoring the question Daniel jumped up and fired again. The Centurian was very close now, and Daniel easily managed to hit him again. After this third hit the large Cylon seemed to just evaporate, and Daniel ducked back down.
In the meantime Teal'c, Sam, and Jack had managed to eliminate the final Cylon. The combined assault from their three P-90s had been too much for the Centurian as well as the small tree that it was hiding behind, which now lay in splinters on the ground next to the remains of the two Cylons.
Everyone had ducked back behind the rock, just in case there were more of them. "Got him." Sam declared.
"Me too." Daniel said. Starbuck looked at him, the obvious question in her mind. Daniel explained, holding up the zat gun, "One shot stuns, two shots kills, three shots disintegrates." Starbuck looked impressed, with a newfound respect for the odd-looking little device.
"I thought you were ▒more of a scientist.'" She said, mockingly.
"Well, I have my moments." The archeologist smiled.
"As touching as this is," Tyrol said, making his presence known for the first time since the battle had started, "we need to get going."
"Right." The Colonel agreed.
The chief had some reservations about leaving Demetrius' body behind, not to mention the remains of three Cylons. If another scouting party found them, they would be that much closer to finding the resistance base, despite it being an hour's walk from where the battle had occurred, but they had a mission to complete. There was no time for grave-digging.
It was getting dark when the group finally approached the outskirts of the city. Several unfinished buildings were clearly visible. It seemed that the Cylons really had been constructing places for the human population to live. Although why that was remained anybody's guess. Simon noticed Starbuck looking at the buildings. "The toasters stopped building a few days ago, right around the time people started disappearing, just put down their tools and walked off all of a sudden."
"And they haven't done a damn thing since, except take our people." The voice came from an older man who had just stepped out of the shadows.
SG-1 leveled their weapons at the new arrival who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, but Tyrol motioned to them, indicating that things were alright. Starbuck, taken aback at first, jumped forward to give the man a hug. "Colonel!" She exclaimed. Jack pointed to himself questioningly, but no one was paying attention.
"It's good to see you too, Starbuck, but could you all make any more noise? It's not like we're in the middle of enemy territory."
"Sorry, sir." Starbuck said, straightening up. Fortunately the noise from the hundreds of people milling around was more than enough to mask their arrival. Curfew hadn't begun yet.
Colonel Saul Tigh, former XO of the Battlestar Galactica and current leader of the resistance forces operating within New Caprica City, had grown a beard as well. It suited him. On the night that the rest of the resistance had fled New Caprica City, Colonel Tigh, much to the chagrin of his wife Ellen, had opted to stay behind, to try and look after the people left behind as best he could. There hadn't been a lot he could do, except coordinate the flow of information within the underground and funnel it to the resistance. Now, however, he had something bigger planned. Then he noticed SG-1. "Who the hell are these people?" He asked.
"Long story." Tyrol replied.
"Give me the short version."
"They're with us." Starbuck replied. This seemed to be enough for Tigh. Fortunately, it was too dark for him to notice the uncanny resemblance between Major Carter and a certain visitor from the stars or the long version might have been necessary.
"Hope you all are ready for a fight." Tigh said after a moment.
"What do you mean?" Chief Tyrol asked. As far as he was concerned this mission was strictly recon.
"I mean that they've taken another five dozen people since I sent Simon to talk to you. They're getting more brazen about it too, just walking out and grabbing people. Then dragging them back to that damn citadel thing."
For once Starbuck had a powerful partner in her desire for active resistance. "Ok," she said, "so what are we going to do about it?"
"Follow me." Tigh ordered. As they walked he explained the plan. He had ten marines, armed and ready to go. They were going to infiltrate the citadel and take out the Cylon leadership. The human-form Cylons leading the invasion would be resurrected, but as far as the resistance could tell there weren't resurrection facilities on New Caprica. So it would be a while before word reached the Cylon forces on the planet. During that small window they would find out why the Cylons were taking humans to the citadel and finally they would locate and detain the blonde woman who had arrived in the strange spaceship.
"Why?" Tyrol asked when Tigh mentioned the blonde. The four members of SG-1 decided it would probably be best not to say anything while the resistance made their plans.
"There's something about her." Tigh said. "The Cylons seem almost scared of her, and that ship she's got, no one has ever seen anything like it. If we can get our hands on the kind of technology that scares even the Cylons-"
"Then we might actually stand a chance of beating them!" Starbuck declared, finishing the thought for him.
"At the very least we might be able to use her and her ship to find Galactica and Pegasus." Colonel Tigh said. "Get us back into the fight."
"Ok," Colonel O'Neill said, speaking for the first time since they'd met the other Colonel. "We're in. How do we get into this citadel thing?" They could see it looming in the distance.
Colonel Tigh looked at O'Neill, still not trusting the strange new person, but apparently the word of Kara Thrace was good enough for him. If Jack O'Neill had known about the history that those two shared that fact alone would have seemed pretty incredible. "My wife," Tigh replied, after a moment's appraisal of the Colonel, "Ellen, she's got us a way in."
"How?" Starbuck asked.
"Who knows." Tigh replied. "Whenever I ask her all she'll say is, 'I have my ways.' I've learned that that is usually enough."
Tyrol now spoke up, "Will we be able to pick up the others before we leave the planet?" He asked.
Colonel Tigh stopped walking and looked at the Chief, with understanding in his eyes. "I know you're worried about your wife and kid, Chief. I promise we'll do what we can." The answer didn't seem to satisfy Tyrol at all, but he knew it was the best that he could expect. The party continued on.
By the time they arrived at the citadel the light was completely gone. The building itself was a hulking black mass in the night. New Caprica didn't even have a moon to provide light, and all of the stars were blocked by the nebulous clouds that they had once hoped to use to hide from the Cylons. There were no Cylon patrols to be seen. According to Tigh they'd stopped patrolling the area at about the same time they'd stopped doing most everything else. The group was headed for a specific spot. When they arrived they found Ellen Tigh already waiting for them.
The husband and wife embraced each other and shared a quick kiss. "Thank the gods you're all right." Ellen said. "I was getting so worried."
"Nothing to be worried about yet." Colonel Tigh replied. "You got our way in?"
"Of course." She said quickly. She began to feel along the wall. It was too dark to make out any details on it. Then there was a click and a section of the wall slid away. At the same moment several figures emerged from a nearby tent. Everyone raised their weapons in anticipation, but after a sign and a countersign it was determined that the figures were actually the ten marines that the Colonel had promised.
After a few last minute instructions the whole group entered the doorway. Simon had taken off just after the party had met up with Colonel Tigh. So there were ten marines, four members of SG-1, Starbuck, Tyrol, Colonel Tigh, and his wife.
The corridor they entered was dimly lit, although any one of them would have been hard-pressed to say exactly where the light was originating from. The doorway slid shut and disappeared behind them. It caused everyone to turn and look. This was the first good look that the members of SG-1 had gotten at the walls of the citadel. "Oh crap." Jack said, as the reality of their situation dawned on him.
The other three members of his team were feeling various versions of the same sentiment. "We must leave this place at once." Teal'c said, his demeanor calm as usual.
Carter moved toward one of the walls to examine it more closely. "They're definitely replicator blocks, Colonel." She said carefully.
"What the hell are you people talking about?" Tigh interjected. "We need to move, now."
Daniel turned to the group of colonials. "This entire building is made of replicator blocks. Do you have any idea what that means?" They stared at him blankly. "Of course you don't." He concluded. "Look," Daniel was talking fast now, "replicators are a race of technological, uh-"
"Bugs." Jack offered.
"Thank you, a race of technological 'bugs,' for lack of a better term. Their only goal in life is to create more of themselves, to replicate. They will kill anything in their way, and they will consume any natural resource that they can use to that end. Do you understand what I am trying to say?"
"What kind of frakking psychos did you bring with you, Starbuck?" Kara shrugged her shoulders. She was only slightly less confused by what she was hearing than the Colonel was, and that was just because she was used to these people saying completely unbelievable things. "Look," Tigh said firmly, "if you want to leave, that's your own business. We're moving ahead right now." He turned and motioned to the rest of the group who began to follow him down the passageway. Starbuck was the last to leave, giving the strangers a sympathetic look and a shrug before moving off after the others.
The four members of SG-1 looked at each other for a long moment. Finally Daniel spoke. "They're going to need our help if they're going to finish this mission, especially if the replicators are involved now."
Jack O'Neill sighed. He knew Daniel was right. "Besides," he said, "if we don't go we'll never find out about this other Carter they keep saying they've seen." Sam and Teal'c nodded their heads in agreement and the four of them hurried off in the direction of the colonial group.
They'd been walking for several minutes and an eerie sense of unease was gradually replacing the tension of being inside the enemy's stronghold. Not only had they not seen a single person, or Cylon for that matter, since they'd entered the citadel, but the passageway they were traversing hadn't so much as forked. The patterned wall hadn't revealed so much as a doorway or even a doorknob. The members of SG-1 knew that this was irrelevant. You didn't need doorknobs in a wall made out of replicator blocks, but it was unnerving nonetheless.
Daniel looked at Jack. "Maybe this isn't the best time to bring this up." He said, "but I just remembered something."
"What is it?"
"You know that room on P3X-725? The one where we found the second mirror that took us here?"
"Kind of hard to forget it." Major Carter noted.
"Well, the walls there were made of replicator blocks too." His three other team members turned and looked at him incredulously. "That's what made me jump back into Teal'c." Daniel explained. "But in all the excitement since then, it had sort of slipped my mind... until now."
"Great." Jack said. There wasn't much else to do about it now.
Finally the corridor ended into a large room. It was completely bare except for a few stairs leading up to a raised section of the floor, akin to a stage, all made out of replicator blocks, of course. The entire party stopped just short of entering the room. They peered in, no one in sight.
"Ok," Colonel Tigh said slowly. "We've got to be careful here. Chief," Tyrol straightened up, "you go left. Captain," Starbuck looked at him, "you go right. I'll go into the middle. You four," the members of SG-1 turned to him, "you're coming with me." They all nodded in agreement. Then he turned to the rest of the party. "You men, hang back. We don't want to tip our hand too soon. Be ready to rush in if we run into trouble." The men's determined faces absorbed their orders. Finally Tigh turned to his wife. "Ellen, you stay with them."
"But, Saul,"
"No buts, Ellen, if fighting starts I want you to stay back behind the others." She obviously wasn't happy about it, but she nodded her head in submission.
"Ok," he said. "Let's move out." The party of seven made their way into the seemingly empty room. Only the members of SG-1 fully understood that no room could be safe when it was composed of replicator blocks. However, for the moment, the blocks seemed content to just remain where they were, and none of the people from Stargate Command wanted to press the issue.
The party glanced around the room. It seemed to be as empty as it had first appeared, and there was no way out. The journey into the heart of the Cylon base on New Caprica seemed to have dead-ended. "Looks like we're clear." Tigh said, turning toward the passageway where the rest of his men were waiting.
"Oh, I don't know if I'd go that far, Colonel Tigh." A voice said. Everyone spun around in time to see Samantha Carter standing center-stage on the raised section of the floor. At least, it looked a lot like Samantha Carter.
"Who the hell are you?" Tigh asked. He knew full well that this was the women who they had come to kidnap, but that wasn't really an answer to the question he'd asked.
"I'd like to know that too." Major Carter chimed in.
For the first time Tigh took a good look at Major Carter, and his face went pale. He'd been traveling with the woman that they were here to get, at least one copy of her. "A Cylon!" He declared, drawing his gun and swinging it back and forth between the Major and the woman on the stage.
"No, no, nothing so straight-forward as that, my dear Colonel." The woman replied smoothly.
Before Tigh could respond Ellen came flying out of the passageway. "Ellen!" He exclaimed. "I said," then suddenly the opening connecting the passageway to the large room disappeared, trapping the contingent of colonial marines.
Colonel O'Neill, who was standing closest to where the opening had once been could make out the familiar sounds of replicators moving, followed by gunshots, then by screams, and finally by silence.
"What the hell is going on here?!" Colonel Tigh demanded.
Ignoring him Ellen Tigh walked up the stairs toward the woman who looked so remarkably like Major Carter. "How did I do?" She asked.
"Perfectly, my friend." The other woman replied. When she topped the staircase she took up a position standing beside the other Samantha Carter.
Colonel Tigh looked from one to the other, not sure what to make of what was happening. "Ellen?" He asked, plaintively.
"I'm sorry, Saul," she said, "but being married to you just doesn't come with the..." she searched for just the right word, "benefits that it once did." She looked at the other woman. "I've gotten a better offer." She smiled wryly.
The look on Saul Tigh's face illustrated the betrayal and heartbreak that he felt. The woman on the stage just laughed. She put her hand on Ellen's back. "A woman after my own heart." She declared. Suddenly Ellen's smile morphed into a look of shock, and she reached up and touched a large blade that was protruding from her chest. Then she fell to the ground. "If I had a heart, that is." The other woman declared, laughing. The giant blade morphed back into her arm.
"She's a replicator!" Daniel exclaimed.
"A replicator version of Carter?" O'Neill asked, looking at Daniel. "So, like, RepliCarter?"
"Astute as ever, I see, Colonel." RepliCarter said. At that moment Starbuck and Tyrol who had been hanging back during the entire exchange opened fire on the human-form replicator. The bullets passed through her harmlessly, making a few impressions in the wall behind her. RepliCarter just laughed. When the firing stopped she looked at them, an amused grin on her face. "Finished?" She asked playfully. The two colonial soldiers looked on, dumbfounded. "Good," the woman proclaimed, then turned toward her human counterpart who the rest of SG-1 had gathered around. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions." She said.
"Like who exactly you are." Sam agreed.
"And what your purpose is here." Teal'c put in.
"Well," RepliCarter said. "I suppose I owe you some sort of explanation. You are, after all, the reason I exist. Where to begin... Well, do you remember your last encounter with human-form replicators?"
"When we went to repair the Asgard time dilation device." Sam affirmed.
"Exactly." The other Sam agreed. "During that time, the replicator known as Fifth entered your mind, and he offered to help you escape. You repaid this, of course, by betraying him."
"That wasn't my idea." Carter said, glancing at Colonel O'Neill.
"That's not important." RepliCarter said. "What is important is that while he was in your mind Fifth took the equivalent of a mental snap-shot of its contents. After you betrayed him and left he became obsessed with you. The result was me. A perfect copy of you. Only I am not hindered by the emotional conscience that holds you back from what you're capable of."
"So the other human-form replicators are here too?" Carter asked.
"No." The other Carter replied. "Once we discovered how to escape from the Asgard's time dilation field their narrow views became an annoyance to me. Even Fifth, superior to the others in his ambition, proved to be tiresome. So I eliminated them."
"You killed the other human-forms?"
"They were unnecessary. We function much more efficiently with me in sole command of my replicator brethren." She used her hands to indicate the replicator blocks composing the structure.
"Then what are you doing here?" Colonel O'Neill said. So far Starbuck and Chief Tyrol seemed content to just sit and listen after their failed attack. Colonel Tigh had fallen to his knees at the sight of his wife being murdered and hadn't moved or said a word since.
"It's interesting. I was on my way to destroy you actually. I had plans to make Earth our home base in your galaxy, but, as luck would have it, the first planet we approached in the Milky Way had something in store for us. We discovered a quantum mirror. I found a way to adapt the technology, and I realized, why settle for one universe when the vast reaches of all reality lay before me, ripe for the picking."
"But there are an infinite number of parallel realities." Major Carter objected. "Trying to conquer them all would literally take forever."
"We have the time." RepliCarter replied, smiling knowingly. "I led my replicator brethren to a few realities, conquering several planets, always making sure to secure the quantum mirror on the same planet in each reality. However, I soon discovered that there were many universes where the level of technology present exceeded our own. As powerful as we were, we could not conquer all of reality without supplementing our forces."
"In other words," Daniel translated, "you needed help."
"We began to seek out allies." RepliCarter said. "Allies with the same ambition and the same drive as our own."
"And you found the Cylons!" Starbuck declared, stepping forward and entering the conversation for the first time.
"Absolutely right, Captain Thrace." RepliCarter replied. "The Cylons, a cybernetic race with something of an axe to grind with their creators. They were initially skeptical of my offer, but there was one model that saw the potential in an alliance. The blonde looked to her right where a doorway had suddenly materialized and out walked an 8, the model that the colonial officers knew as Sharon Valeri or Boomer.
Chief Tyrol took a step forward. " Sharon?" He asked cautiously.
Sharon looked at him and smiled. "Yes, Chief. Not either of the ones you know, but I am Sharon."
" Sharon was the only model to realize the possible benefits of my offer. I'm afraid the others were somewhat uncooperative." She turned to Sharon again with a smile.
"They never were that smart." Boomer replied.
"So you destroyed the rest of them?" Starbuck asked. She was torn, the rest of the human Cylons were apparently gone, but they seemed to have been replaced by someone or something much worse.
"The rest of the human models were... unnecessary." RepliCarter concluded. The other models, the Centurians, for instance, still have their uses. In fact it was them relaying images to us that made this meeting possible." She turned back to the four members of SG-1. "When I saw that you were traveling with the resistance, well, I had to speak to you myself. So I made a deal with our friend Ellen here." She indicated the corpse that still lay at her feet. "Now, if I've answered all of your questions, we really should finish this, shouldn't we?" She looked at Sharon who nodded in agreement.
"One last thing." Carter said, to the surprise of her replicator counterpart. "What are you doing with the people that you've been abducting from the city."
RepliCarter and Boomer laughed. "That's explained easily enough." The blonde declared. "It's the same thing that we're about to do to you."
With that another figure walked through the doorway. She appeared to be dressed entirely in black, though what exactly she was dressed in was hard to say. Her skin was a ghastly shade of gray and from the top of her head sprouted several tubes.
Jack turned to Daniel. "Bad hair day?" Daniel shrugged.
RepliCarter began speaking again. "Let me introduce you to one other person whose acquaintance I've made in my travels. I'd like you to meet the Queen of the Borg Collective."
"So they're mine?" The Borg Queen asked.
"Of course." RepliCarter replied. Sharon nodded. "As per our agreement."
Sections of wall began to disappear around the room. Out of the openings appeared Borg drones, although none of the soon-to-be drones in the room knew that term. "You see," RepliCarter explained, "my brethren desire to replicate, using minerals and other resources. However, we lack the ability to grow, and to incorporate new technologies. The Cylons," she looked at Boomer, "believe it's their divine mission to destroy and conquer. Although I think Sharon here is more interested in power. They also have ingenious methods of preserving the experience and intelligence of individual units. They learn from their mistakes, including death. The Borg are the ultimate adapters, absorbing the best characteristics and technology of each new species they encounter and making it part of themselves. Not even you organic life forms are wasted. Working together we will be unstoppable." She glanced at the Borg Queen who nodded almost imperceptibly. Then she looked back at the humans (and the Jaffa) who had begun using their weapons to try and fend off the approach of the Borg. Then she smiled. "Resistance is futile." The members of the triumvirate began to laugh.
Written by Data laughing
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227
Thanks for reading Part 6. If you have any feedback positive or negative leave me a review.