Fall of the Gods Book 1: Colonials on the Run Redux

by Scourge75

A dark past. A desperate race. A forced alliance. The return of a race long forgotten. The effects that no one could've foreseen. - OCs galore! Major rewrites from previous post. New chapter will be posted every weekday.

34. Kiss the Past Goodbye

Chapter 33

Kiss the Past Goodbye

***Local Cluster (Sol System)***

**Earth (Surface)**

*Stargate Command (Briefing Room) [roughly one hour after the Battle for Earth]*

"What do we know?" Landry asked as he walked into the room where the people who led his teams of specialists were gathered along with the ranking officers from the fleet.

"During the battle in orbit, we lost two ships. The Devastator went down while fully in the control of the ship's onboard AI so we didn't lose any members of the organic crew. The Savage Annihilation, the Impolan Ha'tak that saved the Cursor and bought the ship enough time to get behind the PDS, was fully evacuated once it was maneuvered into position so we avoided loss of life there as well. Well, the Impolans avoided loss of life. We actually had a few injured people when the Cursor took that last hit. We also lost the South Park during an atmospheric engagement against a Mothership attacking military strongholds in Eastern Europe. The South Park was crewed by a team of four specialists in the CIC with sixteen engineers installing various systems in the ship. Yes," Colonel Carter cut off the interruption she knew was coming, "we sent her into the fight while actively upgrading her. We had to.

"Even with that, we actually got lucky," Sam continued the explanation as the holoprojector activated to show the destruction of the Ancient Cruiser. "If the beam had hit as little as an inch to either side of its impact site, the death toll would've been worse. As it stands, only one member of the crew died as his terminal overloaded and… melted his face. Had the beam hit one inch more to the ship's bow, secondary explosions would've killed the six technicians in the forward section. Had the beam hit one inch to the ship's aft, the secondary explosions would've caused the engines to go critical and the entire ship would've been destroyed by the resulting explosion and radiation would have escaped the core and spread across the surrounding area."

"That brings us to our next point," Doctor Bill Lee continued. "Opening hyperspace windows on the planet-side of the PDS allowed large amounts of subspace radiation to enter Earth's atmosphere. Luckily the Asgard have encountered this problem before and had developed a means of 'scrubbing' a planet's atmosphere and oceans of any foreign materials. Using the energy-to-matter synthesizers on the Ares we've constructed a dozen of these drones to begin cleaning up the radiation the battle unleashed in the atmosphere with more being produced as we speak to speed up the process. Once they're done, the scrubbers will start focusing on less lethal problems like the remnants from BP's latest oil spill and the harmful materials being pumped into the air by the industrialization of the planet. We'll actually be able to restore Earth's water supplies and atmosphere back to the where they were before we hit the Industrial Age. Allergens will be eliminated and a lot of minor health problems will be solved in the process."

"When it comes time for disclosure," Weir said and most of the veteraned soldiers with the SGC flinched at the mere mention of the word, "this will help calm the masses. If they know that the events that have been kept secret from them for all this time are going to impact their lives in a positive way, they'll be less likely to go into full-scale riots. That won't stop the economies from collapsing, mind you, but it'll help. We can also use the existence of the PDS to help calm people down about Earth being attacked again in the future. We also need to begin the process of installing surface-to-orbit ion cannons across the globe to help increase our defense and decrease our reliance on drones.

"The two systems working together will be more effective anyway since the Ori just proved that drones aren't as omni-potent as we thought. There's also the ability of the countries represented by the Stargate Alliance to begin producing clean energy en mass. A global power grid could be established that uses Neutrino Ion Generators to produce the energy we need for everyday things which will help keep the atmosphere clean. We have the power and potential to change Earth drastically, and, if we play our cards right, all of those changes can be for the better."

"Yeah, but I don't see how putting thousands of people out of a job and over a hundred power companies out of business is a good thing. That's likely to create an economic depression even with people not having to pay an electric bill," Bill countered while rubbing his chin.

"Then we use what we have to circumvent that," Sam said as she changed the holoprojector to display one of their 304 slips. "Pac did a real number on our ability to produce warships. By constructing dedicated power generation facilities and tying them into the Asgard's energy-to-matter converters, we can do one of two things. The first option is to drastically speed up ship production by using the raw materials we have and dumping them into the energy-to-matter converters' buffers. Just like a transport beam, this will allow the converters to do all the work nonstop and build a new ship in three months by reassembling existing matter. The other option is to build more Neutrino Ion Generators, stop mining entirely, and let the converters build a ship in roughly six months. Both methods reduce ship production time drastically…" Sam began.

"And put more people out of a job," Bill countered sternly.

"No, it doesn't," Sam said with a smile.

"The fleet budget," Jack said with an approving nod.

"Both of these methods eliminate the need for both an assembly crew and the need to pay that workforce. One of these methods even goes as far as to eliminate our dependency on mining to build up our forces. That means that every paycheck we would be writing to pay the miners and the builders stops being written. It also means that maintaining mining equipment is as easy as manufacturing the needed replacements with the same methods we'd be building our ships with. That means that we'll have trillions of dollars every year already given to use that would have no use."

"So, what? We pay people for sitting around doing nothing?" McKay huffed. "Typical American solution to everything."

"Rodney!" Weir said in warning, her tones tight.

How he could say something like that after the largely American-controlled fleet just risked everything to save the planet from an intergalactic invasion was beyond her. How he could make such a comment in front of the very men who had led that fleet and lost people along the way was another mind-boggling concept for her. All of the people present in this room could kill him with ease and it was not bravery that led McKay to say the things he did.

"No," Sam shook her head, ignoring the snide comment. "We pay their way through school. A full-ride scholarship that pays for housing, gas, food, tuition, family needs… Anyone we put out of a job, we send back to school. Whatever they were making before their job was lost will be sent to their families every week or two-weeks depending on if they, themselves, were paid weekly or biweekly. On top of that, their schooling is paid for. We'd have to set up things like 'your grades have to be so high if you want the continued support', but it would solve the potential problem of an economic depression and even gives the countries in the Stargate Alliance a better reputation amongst the public. People would be spending more money by proxy because we'd be sending massive amounts of funding to schools across the globe and getting our fleet expansion without anyone having a valid reason to complain."

"I like it," Bill said with a simple nod.

"The next order of business if the rest of the fleet," Colonel Davidson said, bringing the conversation back onto matters of a military nature as the holoprojector shifted to show the USS Odyssey in her current state. It wasn't a pretty picture. "Despite what you're all thinking, we made it off light… ish," Davidson said gruffly. "We lost thirteen good men and women to hull breaches and a few of our Asgard systems are offline, but they're all easily fixed since we had to deal with this when the Apollo lost her systems during the first engagement. The damage to the Odyssey all came when we were holding off the Ori long enough for the Apollo to escape. To get the shields to hold as long as they did, we had to turn the Asgard Core back on and channel both its energy and the ZPM's power into the shields directly. That damn power core finally did us some good, but, even then, we took a beating."

The holoprojector then shifted to show the Apollo itself, a 302 bay missing, dark scorches on the hull, and cracks that shot through the armor in a spider web of weaknesses. "Had they not stuck around, we would've lost more than our 302 bay. As it stands, we lost three 302s that were rearming, and twenty-six members of the crew. Four of them were the 302 pilots, ten were in the bay working on the planes, and the rest were the result of either the explosion of the bay tearing open the hull, or the various hull breaches we suffered after the shield failed but before the beam hit. We lost four of our secondary engines, all of our refined fuel for the fighters in that bay, any extra ammo stocks we had for the fighters, and suffered secondary overloads in systems close to the impact site. Those overloads took out one of our primary engines and left the starboard flank of the ship weakened. Apollo's best estimates put the repair time at two months and several thousand metric tons of material to repair the damaged flank. Replacing the 302 bay will take an additional three months on top of that."

The holoprojector shifted again, this time the Daedalus appearing before them. The hull, much to everyone's relief, looked to be fully intact. "Don't look so happy," Caldwell said solemnly. "Since we didn't have an AI, we didn't know where not to be. As a result, we got grazed by the Grodin." The entire port side of the Daedalus then promptly started flashing red. "Everything on the port side was overloaded by the glancing blow and several of the systems caused secondary explosions when they overloaded. Half of the ship is effectively just there to look pretty and the other half is suffering from the lack of cooperation from the damaged half."

O'Neill shook his head and applied pressure to the bridge of his nose. "Go down to the infirmary and have Doctor Lam scan your brain. It'll make repairing everything easier if we can get an AI into the system to tell us what's wrong."

"With all due respect, General. My people have already done that," Caldwell countered sternly, his tone defiant yet respectful. "I'll take an AI with my morals without complaint, but my men don't need a computer telling them what's wrong with their computers. They were trained well and we've suffered through worse wounds under worse conditions. The Battle of Void left us more desperately broken than the Battle for Earth. If we can survive that, we can handle a few overloaded and uncooperative systems. We will, however, need help landing the ship. Sara doesn't trust the engines to hold up to gravity right now. Propulsion's a little unstable at the moment."

"Of course your people are well trained," Sieon said as he walked into the room with a bandage wrapped around his head. "We wouldn't still be alive if they weren't. If ever I had any doubts about your race's place amongst the Alliance of Four, they have been thoroughly banished from my mind."

"You look like hell," Sam said in a concerned tone.

"Prior kick your ass?" Jack asked, a complete lack of humor in his question despite the wording.

Sieon huffed indignantly at that. "Priors are half-ascended fools who fancy themselves the messengers of their Gods. They have telekinetic powers, yes, but so do I. They can control fire, yes, but so can I… if in a different manner," Sieon added as a rippling, blue-black flame danced in the fingers of his hand before vanishing without a trace. "Biotics, unlike telepathy, are a physical strength measured by how much eezo you have in your body and your skill in their use. Your genes determine how much your body can handle, and I have some small part of my brother's genes. Needless to say, it would take more than the mentally deformed powers of a Prior to give me a 'run for my money,' as you Humans would say. No, I suffered this injury when the Nex crashed into your oceans and a support beam fell from the ceiling and struck me upon my head."

"You sound… old," Colonel Mitchell pointed out.

"Head injuries are hard on Furlings because of how advanced our minds are," Sieon answered the poorly worded question. "Furlings are accustomed to seeing everything even if their eyes do not work. Blind Furlings can still see the world through the eyes of others, but not when they are struck upon the head." The disoriented looking man took a seat at the table and looked around at the gathered military and scientific figures. The politicians would be filled in later. Right now, this was a post-battle meeting for those who fought it. "It is akin to getting piss-ass drunk then having someone crush your skull. You continue to live, but you suffer great pain and feel disoriented. I cannot reach out with my mind to interact with the world around me which is rather a freighting sensation given that I have been able to do so since I was born. My earliest recallable memory in life is the feeling of my mother's mind when it first touched my own shortly after I entered the world of the living. I cannot recall that sensation anymore."

"We all owe you a great deal of thanks," Weir said matter-of-factly, ignoring the mention of the Furling's birth for the most part. She had questions about their culture, yes, but she'd ask them later. Doctor Jackson, who was standing across the room from her, was surely thinking along the same lines.

"You can thank me by getting my ship working again," Sieon replied while rubbing the uninjured side of his head. "Failing that, I need a FTL capable craft not being tied down in shuttling supplies around that you will not miss. I need to get back out there."

"Get back out where?" Daniel asked.

"Right," Sieon mumbled to himself while still rubbing at this head. "I never told you. After I found my people were gone, I searched the ruins and found something," Sieon explained as he pulled a black box from his pocket. "It is one piece of twelve that will unlock a hidden computer that will lead me to the location of… I do not actually know, but Rana went through great lengths to hide it so it must be important."

"Who's Rana?" Sam asked when the room fell silent.

"A conversation for another time," Sieon replied as he finally stopped rubbing his head. "The Ori Mothership has been secured. I handled the Prior and left your people to deal with the rest. Your Command Chief Master Sergeant, who has a rank that is longer than most are willing to speak, assured me that they could handle a few Ori soldiers."

"A few thousand is more like it," Mitchell countered.

"All but a few hundred were killed in the crash and I slaughtered dozens more to reach the Prior," Sieon assured them. "Now, what were you discussing when I entered?"

"The fleet status," Landry said. "We just went over the losses we suffered and the damages to the 304s. Next up is the Cursor."

"That ship is an over-glorified, highly lethal scrap heap," Sieon said coldly.

"Excuse me?" Jack asked indignantly.

"Nearly twenty percent of the Cursor's hull is drifting in orbit above us," Admiral Ricks clarified as the holoprojector displayed the now heavily damaged ship that was missing a significant section of its rear… whatever those tower-things were called that the Asgard had put on all of their ships. "At this point, as I've been made to understand it, the time and materials needed to fully complete the Cursor's repairs would be enough to build the space frame and armored hull of a new O'Neill-class from scratch and the superstructure of a second. In its current state, the ship is essentially just for show. Its shield, alone, will take three months of constant effort to get back to full strength, let alone operational on any useful level. As it now stands, the Cursor could be easily destroyed by a trio of Ha'tak."

"We could always pull a card from the Colonials' book," Mitchell offered.

"What do you mean?" Landry asked.

"Galactica was a museum when the Cylons attacked. We already have plans to pull the Core from the Odyssey and put it into a museum to honor the Asgard. Why not use the Cursor as that museum? We can get the hull breaches fixed then remodel it to serve as the last great creation left of the Asgard race. With the Core installed and a museum setup, we could really let people see what the Asgard were like. Add in holographic projectors to…" Mitchell paused as he thought of how best to word it. "… 'let the crew walk the halls,' and you'd have a good way of showing people the Asgard as they were before their…" and here he simply trailed off, unwilling to say the words.

"I really don't like the idea of taking a warship and making it a museum, but the state of the ship and the fact that its repairs would be so costly… at least we can honor the Asgard with it," Jack said with a nod.

"Then there's the Gaia," Sam said as the ship in question appeared before them. "Because the Lanteans used ZPMs for everything, including their ships, they were able to take on greater numbers despite the odds being against them. Because of this, the Gaia had a ZPM during the battle."

"'Had'?" Jack asked.

"Had," Sam nodded. "It's the only reason the ship's shields held as long as they did. Without it, the Gaia would've been added to the debris in orbit. The Gaia's shield only failed once the ZPM was fully depleted, that's why you couldn't restore them after they went down," Sam informed them. "The ship is now running entirely off of its own backup generator and the Neutrino Ion Generators we installed. It's still fully combat ready, but the subspace grid was damaged when you clipped that tower as Atlantis covered you with their own shield, which brings us to the last part of the Gaia's report. Atlantis' shield didn't affect the hull, true, but it did affect the nannites that were effectively holding the upgrades together. Some of them were destroyed while passing through the field, but they're nannites as smart as the Asurans.

"The nannites that were destroyed by the shield sent a signal to the others and they started working on a way to survive. By the time the first Neutrino Ion Generator entered the shield dome, the nannites composing the generator had found a way to bypass Atlantis' shield without being harmed. Because of this, the Gaia wasn't stripped of all of its upgrades and left with nothing but drones as would've otherwise happened when the shield destroyed them. However, several parts of the ship towards the aft that were upgraded by the Nex will have to be upgraded again, but this time we need to do all of it without the nannites including the nannite-upgraded parts that are still intact. First, we have to reseal the ship's main reactor which was affected by Atlantis' shield and is leaking again."

"The Ares is still in perfect fighting condition, and the slip back at the Alpha Site will be able to handle the upgrades and modifications we now know need to be made. We need to equip the modified Predator Drones with beam capacitors or some type of relay system to improve the range of the Vultures, and we need to install inertial and recoil dampeners in the STO ion cannons. The vibrations they send through the hull when firing are disturbing on a number of levels and distracting for the same reason," General Ervin added.

"Atlantis never lost shields and the city was designed to take on a very large number of Wraith Hiveships, so the Ori didn't do any measurable damage, but every second we spend in space is draining our power needlessly," McKay pointed out.

"So land it," Sieon said, his tone somewhat distant, eyes unfocused, and face a rictus of pain. "The Artic Weapons Platform is where the city was built. It was designed to land there, so just set it down."

"I'd feel better landing it on an ocean," Sheppard said, speaking for the first time since the meeting began.

"Then let the AIs do it," Sieon countered with a dismissive wave of his three-fingered hand. "The systems in the Artic were designed to house the city. You'd be surprised at how much of a boon it is to return a tree to its roots."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

"The Ares was built on the Alpha Site. The facilities there are equipped to house and maintain the vessel. Trying to upgrade it at Area 51 is ill-advised and pointless as you'd have to land it on the sands of the desert seeing as how the ship is too large to fit within the 304 slips. As the General has pointed out, the upgrades to the ship would best be done where the ship was built. When the Daedalus was in Pegasus and you wanted to upgrade it there, you could've done everything by sending all of the needed materials through the Gate, but instead you brought the ship back to Earth. Why? Because it's easier and more effective to repair it where it was built. It may not look like much, but the Artic Weapons Platform is more than you think it to be."

"Okay, that's the Ares, Daedalus, Odyssey, Apollo, Cursor, Gaia, Atlantis, South Park, Savage Annihilation, and Devastator," Sam listed off on her fingers. "The Artic Weapons Platform depleted what was left of its supply of drones taking out six of the Motherships, but now that we have a way of resupplying them it's just a matter of making more. To that end, we're pulling the leftover drones off of the South Park's magazines and relocating them to the Artic Weapons Platform since the Gaia doesn't need them. That leaves the rest of the Impolan fleet and the Nex."

Sieon grunted at that and shook his head before the remains of his ship appeared in the holoprojector. The sight made several sets of eyes widen in horror and several jaws drop in shock. "The Nex was damaged to the point of breaking. Another beam to the right area, and the ship would've crumbled into dust. It will take a long time to repair the damage because the industrial might of the Furlings has been destroyed. What would normally take only a few weeks must now be done in months! I will have to show you how to create anti-protons to replace our lost stores, give you the methods needed to mine eezo so we can create a high gravity field to crush matter together and replace the armor with these methods. You will have to be given the knowledge of the Furlings' methods of ship production to affect any effective repairs and I am not entirely certain I want to give those methods to you. You have gained much in a short time and I fear what would become of your species if you gain too much before you are ready for it."

An odd series of clicks filled the air before a voice replaced it. "There is another option," a figure said as it shimmered into existence standing off in one corner of the room.

"Yes, I have noticed that you use that which is not yours," Sieon said, though there was no hostility in his words. "You have something I need," he said in his native tongue.

"I will not withhold from you that which is yours," the alien said in kind, his words punctuated with a small bow. "The Mimner wishes to meet with you. I will arrange this occurrence."

"You do not speak this language well," Sieon noted.

"It is not the language I was born to speak," the alien replied simply. Turning back to the Humans assembled before them, all of them looking confused, the alien then added, "The Mimner has given all to the peoples of Earth that it is willing to without compensation. Now it asks of you a small favor in return for services rendered."

"You just help save our collective asses," Jack said with a note of deep respect. "Name whatever price you want."

"A way home," the alien said simply. "We have but one ship left capable of entering hyperspace, and like the Taerg Reyarteb, the industrial might of Earth cannot solve our problems."

Landry was about to say something about that when Sieon stood to his feet, clearly outraged, and nearly shouted, "How do you know that name!?"

The alien looked the alien in the eye, Sieon's death glare and glowing body having no noticeable effect on the alien in question who was, likewise, glowing a vibrant shade of silver. "The Gaajli speaks highly of you," the Impolan said and the affect those words had were exactly what the alien was going for.

Sieon's rage was instantly gone, his face now a mask of confusion. Then it changed again to one of surprise before settling on naked hope as both of their bodies stopped glowing. "Like Scourge, Gaajli is a title derived from the name of the person who first held it. Gaajli'I'Haff was the first to hold the rank of Chief Scientific Officer in the Furling Galactic Navy. He was Scourge's adviser on all things that could be done to improve their forces and was the one who created a technological device that could amplify a Furling's ability to read minds. It made it to where the Collective that used the machine was able to reach further into space with greater clarity which helped distant Collectives come to know one another in an effort to avert more wars from starting. The last person to hold that title was Rana, my 'wife,' as you would say."

All eyes immediately turned to the other alien in the room. It was Mitchell who asked the question they were all thinking. "You're a Furling?!"

In reply, the alien raised its hand. They all took in the five fingers the alien had and wrote that idea off.

"Then what are you?" Sheppard asked.

The alien looked at the Colonel, its face hidden behind a mask of metal. "I am an Impolan, servant of the Mimner," it replied simply.

"Then how do you know the Gaajli?" Jack asked.

"The Mimner knows a great many things," the Impolan replied vaguely.

"But if the Gaajli's a Furling…" Mitchell began.

"That explains a lot," Sam finished, though the look Mitchell gave her told her that she hadn't even come close to getting the last part of his statement right. "You have particle cannons, hyper compressed layers of common alloys for hull plates, anti-proton thrusters, and I'm pretty sure we detected dark matter on your ships."

"Why are the Furlings controlling a lesser species?" Weir asked, the look Mitchell gave her a clear indication that she had gotten it right.

"'Control' is the wrong word," the Impolan replied. "Long has the knowledge of the Gaajli been the only thing between us and destruction. We were not controlled, we were guided. In return for the Gaajli's knowledge and a safety amongst the stars filled with hostiles found almost exclusively on Earth and other words in the Protected Planets Treaty, we do as the Mimner asks of us. Much has been gained through the alliance, some of which has been given to your own world. We are not slaves to be bossed around and demanded of. We are employees to be paid for our work and asked of. It is not something I expect you to understand."

"And you need a way home," Landry said in a tone that was an obvious attempt to get the conversation back on track.

"Indeed."

"And where would that be?" Jack asked.

"You need not know," the Impolan replied in a casually dismissive tone. "We will need only momentary access to your Stargate. The rest will be taken care of by our own people."

"Granted," Landry said with a nod.

The Impolan then looked down to the tac-pad, as the Humans were calling the small computer built into the armor design the Impolans had given them, and pressed a series of buttons. In the room below them, the chevrons on the Gate flared to life without the inner ring spinning, the lights simply turning on like they did on the Atlantis Gate. As the seventh chevron locked and the Gate activated, a figure down below walked through the Gate unnoticed, their body hidden under the power of a cloaking device. The Gate then deactivated and the room entered an uncomfortable silence.

"We will depart shortly," the Impolan informed them before vanishing.

"So…" Sam said in the extremely awkward silence that followed the alien's departure. "What were we talking about?"

"Post battle debrief," Jack replied in a similar tone.

"Right," Sam said as she checked something on her tablet. "We all know that the first wave was twenty-five ships and that the battle tactics we used effectively handled them with minimal losses. Yes we lost the Devastator in the first wave, but the ship was underpowered for its needed purpose. Without the changes we made, the ship never would've been a threat to the Ori so Ba'al did fail in that regard. Even then, the Devastator was responsible for the kill shot of seven Motherships. One of those it got entirely on its own, the other six it got in conjunction with the Odyssey and Apollo."

"That's still impressive," Colonel Caldwell mused.

"Impressive, but irrelevant," Sam continued.

"Not really," Bill countered. "Without the Devastator, we would've lost the Nex in the first wave and then the second wave would've been that much harder to win."

"Good point," Sam amended. "With the Odyssey and Apollo working together and the Nex taking down their shields with her beam cannon, we scored another four kills for both 304s in the first wave and the last two Motherships were destroyed by either the Nex or when it crashed into the PDS. For the first wave, we took out eight ships, the Nex got one actual kill, the Devastator got seven, and the Cursor got eight. With the last one hitting the PDS that accounts for the capital ships of the first wave, but not the fighters."

"Okay, and the second wave?" Jack asked almost dreading the answer. They all noticed that the projected fifty Motherships had been far more.

"That's where our allies and the Four Great Races…" Sam began.

"Five Great Races," Sieon corrected her distractedly while picking at his bandages.

"… really come in handy. Between all of the ships they brought with them, the Impolans scored twenty-three kills in the second wave on their own, but only one of their ships is left fully functional. Between the 304s and the Ares, we managed to take out fifteen of the Motherships and suffered admittedly limited damage to our forces. Yes the Apollo lost a fighter bay, but it could've been worse. The same can be said for the Daedalus and Odyssey. During the second wave, the Nex took out another ten Motherships and now sits on the oceans as a heap of smoking metal. The Cursor took out six Motherships and is going to cost too much to fix the damages it suffered. Last but not least, between the South Park, the Gaia, Atlantis, and the Artic Weapons Platform, forty-six Ori Motherships were eliminated using something that the Ancients built and we upgraded.

"Now, the bulk of the actual credit for our victory, let alone our survival, goes to the Asgard who gave us what we needed to pull this off. Without their help making the 304s what they are today, we would've been wiped out."

"Aren't their weapons what brought the Ori down on us in the first place?" McKay asked.

All eyes in the room turned to the man. All of them were hostile except for one pair which were simply… distant. "I believe it would be best if you remained silent for the rest of eternity least someone decide to silence you in a less than favorable fashion," Sieon noted in a dry tone, still rubbing at his head and looking like he had the hangover of the era.

"So where do we go from here?" Jack asked.

"We must do an assessment of all that we have and decide how to proceed," Sieon said as he finally stopped rubbing his head if only so he could work the holographic computer built into his armor.

"Oh!" Sam exclaimed as it finally clicked in her head. "The tac-pad! It was based off of your armor, wasn't it?"

"We call them something that would loosely translate into your language as 'Omni-tools'," Sieon replied without pause or effort. A second later, the holoprojector built into the table shifted to show a new design. The Nex, in all her intimidating mass, stripped down to her naked bones. "This is the original blueprint for the Nex," Sieon explained. "I am giving it to you. Do as you will with it. I have need of great speed, not overwhelming firepower."

"As nice as that is, blueprints for a superstructure we can't build isn't going to do us much good," Sam replied.

"You will not need to build the superstructure. It is, for the most part, still structurally sound. There are repairs that are needed, yes, but the bulk of the damage was in the hull plating. The skin has been peeled off and the muscle has been cut into, yes, but the bones remain unbroken," Sieon replied.

Sam's eyes shot wide at what was, to everyone else, a simple statement. "You're giving us your ship!?" Sam all but shouted in surprise and the room instantly became silent.

"You will need it more than I will," Sieon said simply.

"Didn't you just say we were getting too much too fast?" Mitchell asked skeptically.

"And I still believe so, but I also trust you to do what is right, and anything I do not trust you with, Widget will monitor to be sure it cannot be used in an abusive fashion. All that I need from you is your word that you will not misuse the ship and the technology it represents. You'll need to be careful while conducting the repairs since one of the FSR containment cells was breached by the Ori's beam weapons," Sieon continued in far too casual a tone considering the severity of his revelation as the holoprojector zoomed-in on an area of the actual ship where, apparently a live feed from one of the Nex's internal cameras, was showing water leaking into one of the ship's solar reactor plants.

The blue protostar that hovered in the center of the massive chamber inside of a shimmering field was now only a few dozen meters away from the water that was boiling as it entered the chamber and filling the affected part of the ship with steam as the gravity of the star pulled the water, both boiling and not, up into the air. The gravity wasn't as strong as it would be if the star wasn't being contained by the shimmering field, but it was enough to create an unnatural plateau-like high point in the water.

"The containment systems are currently using the oceans of your world as a source of fresh water to keep cycling through the coolant systems in an effort to prevent an overload. You will need to repair that section first and do so very carefully. Ultra violet radiation is harmful to your skin, yes? There are suits in storage aboard the Nex that Widget will show you that will protect you from the bulk of the harmful radiation the protostar produces. Not being pulled into the protostar by its gravity will be the most pressing matter," Sieon finished.

"Wow," Mitchell said, otherwise speechless.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed stoically.

*Stargate Command (Landry's Office) [twelve hours after the Battle for Earth]*

"So what's the plan for disclosure?" Landry asked as he continued to file away the massive amount of paperwork involved in the details of being attacked by one-hundred-twenty-five Ori Motherships in a forty-eight hour period. He would have more nightmares about the paperwork than he would about the attack itself. That was telling.

"The plan is to tell them the truth; that there is a fleet and a shield between them and the enemy, but we're leaving out some parts for security purposes. The President plans to disclose once he's finished writing his speech and securing the other nation's approval of the aforementioned speech." Landry gave the avatar a tired look and Pac added, "Approximately seven days, which I have been informed is an Earth 'week:' a purely biblical term used to describe the amount of time it took the Christian God to finish making your world. I, for one, do not understand how a purely religious article ended up being such a prevalent part of Earth's chronological make up. You have to admit," Pac added when Landry gave him a weird look, "it kinda goes against your whole 'freedom of religion' theme to have a purely, and not entirely universal, religious aspect as such a pivotal part of your calendars. There is, however, a more pressing issue that requires your attention that is not related to my ramblings about the strangeness of your chronological structuring."

"Great, who died this time?" Landry asked out of pure humor, his question ended with a sarcastic huff.

"No one, it's just that the Impolans are leaving and Sieon's going with them," Widget replied.

"WHAT!?" Landry exclaimed while almost doing a spit-take with his coffee.

**Earth (Orbit)**

*USS Odyssey (Bridge)*

The fact that, despite the extensive damage his ship had suffered, the Odyssey was still the best-off of the Earth ships was a disturbing fact in Davidson's humble opinion. Then again, the fact that they had a ZPM and the Core meant that their shields had held the longest. The Daedalus' brush with the Grodin had overloaded a lot of the ship's systems, and anyone could tell you why the Apollo was the first to be put into the docking slip and under the knife. Their repair effort, however, was being stalled by a certain Colonel who was having another stroke of genius.

Davidson wouldn't argue against that. He knew first-hand how useful Sam's ideas could be.

And so the only fully operational ship left in Sol, that wasn't a flying city as the Ares had left for the Alpha Site two hours ago, sat in orbit of her homeworld monitoring the system they called their own. When a burst of energy that had the same visual effect of a Stargate activating appeared near Pluto's orbital track, the planetoid in question currently on the other side of the solar system, and expanded to several kilometers in diameter, Davidson's eyes went nearly as wide as the rapidly forming portal. When an asteroid emerged from that shimmering mass of energy, his mind went blank.

"What the hell?!" Donnelly asked.

"We've got movement!" Marks reported as he typed away at his consul, the battered ship instantly back to combat mode, weapons armed, shields raised, and lights dimmed to conserve power. "It's the Impolans, sir," Marks said after a moment and the Bridge crew breathed a collective sigh of relief as the ship went back to simply sitting there undergoing a series of repairs from the Nex's oh so very handy repair drones. They really needed to make more of those things. "Their ships are heading for the asteroid. Looks like that's how they've stayed hidden for so long."

"An asteroid as a base equipped with a wormhole drive like the Nex?" Donnelly asked, a grin on his face that told them all how great an idea he believed that to be. "The Impolans know how to party!"

"They're leaving," Marks said as the five ships remaining in their small fleet flew into the asteroid, some being towed by others. That mobile rock then began to put out more power than all of Earth's generators, not including anything acquired from the Stargate Program, combined. With another burst of energy and a second Stargate-like whoosh of light spreading over the rock, the asteroid disappeared. As it did, Marks' terminal beeped as a message arrived from Stargate Command. "Sir, General Landry has informed us that Sieon has left with the Impolans. Before leaving he gave us the… 'key' to the Nex's systems."

This time, the news had Davidson's looking slightly confused. He had known about the transfer of command of the ship, but it needed a key? What the hell did that even mean? He shook off the question and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This week can't possibly get any weirder," he mumbled to himself. In all honesty, it was more a directionless prayer than a mumble, but he wouldn't admit to that even under torture and threat of death.

"That's where you're wrong," Isis said as she walked up behind them and pointed to something on Marks' screen. "They're landing Atlantis on the Artic Weapons Platform, and the thing is… waking up."

Davidson looked at the small screen and was about to complain about it when Marks flicked his screen towards the forward viewport and the HUD on the 'window' in question shifted to show the images while the holo-tank in the back that held the galactic map also shifted to show the same thing so all could see without crowding around.

"Gotta admit," Marks mused. "I love the holoscreens." Thusly setup, they could all see what Isis had meant.

Atlantis, in all her slightly damaged glory, was slowly approaching the site on which she had been built all those millions of years ago, and wasn't that an impressive thought? A city several million years old that was not only still standing, but that could willingly fly between galaxies. Simply amazing…

As the city got lower, the ice beneath her landing site began to melt far faster than it should've with only the city slowly approaching, especially considering that Atlantis was still at ten-thousand feet and the heat of its engines and reentry shouldn't affect the ice at that distance. Then, once the ice was weak enough, large, claw-like appendages several kilometers long each burst through the ice and reached into the sky like the fingers of a giant hand. Beneath them, the ice continued to break as large structures rose from beneath the frozen surface. By the time Atlantis was low enough for those claws to touch the city, they had shifted.

Still looking like a great hand reaching into the sky, the claws grabbed hold of Atlantis' piers as powerful hydraulic systems and servomotors lowered the massive bulk of the city down to rest on a massive spike that jutted up from the center of that formation of structures. As it did, a heat spike detectable from orbit sent a massive amount of power into both the city and the surrounding structures. With the docking maneuver completed, the city was instantly consumed in a massive swarm of thousands of drones leaving the buildings that sat beneath the city's massive, snowflake base.

"Well I'll be damned," Donnelly said. "Sieon was right about something being easiest to repair in the place it was built."

"I believe his exact words were 'a tree returning to its roots'," Marks countered.

"Now all we have to do is take control of the automated systems so the drones don't remove the weapons we installed," Davidson agreed with a nod.

"Oh…" Odysseus said, brown, holographic eyes going wide. "We didn't even think of that!" the AI swore before sending a message to Atlantis' AI.

Professor Stark, Homeworld Command's version of Doctor Jackson, had suggested naming the AI 'Plato' since he had been the Ancient to have spread the rumor of Atlantis throughout their galaxy. They had followed his suggestion which helped keep things from being too confusing as naming the AI after the ship, like Apollo and the Apollo, was perplexing in a verbal conversation. They were passively trying to find a new name for that particular AI, but no real effort was going into it. For now, it could stay the way it was.

***Milky Way Galaxy (Ba'al's Territory)***

**Third Gas Giant from the Star (Lunar Orbit)**

*Zeta Site (Ship Yards)*

The wormhole drive that moved the Zeta Site was, in no way, a creation of the Zeta Initiative. No, that system had been installed in the Black Bunker long before the Zeta Initiative was even conceived. They had just learned how to use it, and that act, alone, had taken two-and-a-half years. As such, the trip back to the Zeta Site's chosen resting place was short and uneventful. The Impolans had, before the jump, settled their badly damaged ships into their slips much to the dismay of the Yard Dogs who tended them. From the look their leader sent the leader of the entire facility, they had not had to work this hard on the ships since they were originally constructed. The look the leader of the Yard Dogs gave the one who led Sieon as they disembarked the ship that was missing a wing spoke much to the man's mood, but Sieon had more pressing matters to attend to than an angry worker. The alien leading him through a strange facility being the most pressing.

"You are Human," Sieon simply stated.

"The Impolan Authority is a collection of races united in common purpose," the one leading him through the base said, his words coming out first as a series of clicks and chirps before being translated. "For example, she is no more Human than you are. She is the former Host to a Goa'uld assassin, an experiment in the effects of dark matter on organic life. We rescued her from her Hell and she joined us. Others are former Tok'ra," he added while pointing to another figure not wearing a helmet that had two eyes despite the design of the man's head protection. "Some are genetically altered Humans," another figure, this one a brute of a man in a walking mountain of armor and carrying a gun Sieon would be hard-pressed to survive being shot by. "Others still are Jaffa," and here one of the Yard Dogs was pointed out, the pouch in the man's stomach absent the Goa'uld larva. "Few of us remain simply and purely Human, and those few are just as proud of who they are as those who are not."

"Which world do you call your home?" Sieon inquired.

"You're looking at it," his guide replied.

"And before this?"

"I left behind any connection to my past when I came here. This is my home now."

"Surely this is not it? This is a mine," Sieon stressed. When the alien turned to face him, his face still hidden beneath a helmet, Sieon said, "My mind may be injured, but my body is sound. I can feel the eezo that surrounds us as surely as I can feel the air you pump into the halls of this station as it fills my lungs. You came here to mine, not to live."

"That's an inaccurate assessment," the alien countered, "and do not call me 'Shur-Li.' We came here to live because the mineral we wished to mine was present in bulk. Without it, the technology of your people does not work."

"We thought all the eezo in this universe to be gone," Sieon observed. "How did you find this place?"

"The Gaajli showed the Mimner the way, and he, in turn, showed us," the alien replied with a dismissive wave. "Before you are shown the path to the Gaajli, you must do something for the Impolan Authority."

"Name your price," Sieon said in a darkened tone that still remained neutral.

"You are not the only one afflicted with Glowing Skin in this universe, as you might have figured out on your own," the alien simply stated.

"I have met He Who Glows Silver," Sieon replied. "His power is untamed and referred to as 'Biotics', not 'Glowing Skin'."

"His is a side-effect of exposure to the machinations of your people," his guide continued, unaffected by the new name. "He is not the only one. Hers is the result of experimentation by the Goa'uld. He will live, if in a reduced state, but she will die soon if nothing is done and the other who was Touched can do nothing to stop it in them nor the ill effects she will suffer over time. You wish to convince the Mimner to lower the veil of secrets he uses to protect the Gaajli by her own order? You help me save them and I will give you what you want."

Sieon looked to the indicated figure who was stripping out of her armor and noted the scars that covered her body. He also noted the words and tones the one before him had used. "Is anything you tell the people of Earth true?" Sieon asked in an offhanded fashion as his eyes lazily flit from one person to another, noting that all of them lacked a third eye.

In reply to that question, he heard a hiss and turned to see the armored man, for he had to be a man, before him removing his helmet. Beneath the metal mask was a face with two brilliant green eyes, short, dark brown hair, and a look of defiance. "I do what I must to defend my people," the man said in a tone that left no room for arguing against his purpose in life. He also spoke a perfectly unaccented English.

'Vocal disguises built into the armor,' Sieon surmised with his damaged mind.

"We all do," the man continued. "If that means we must leave our homeworld and go out into the galaxy under the guise of others, then so be it."

"You are from Earth," Sieon more said than asked.

"Born and raised," the man replied with all the pride the Furling had come to expect of the Tau'ri. "I was captured by the Goa'uld years ago. By the time the SGC sent a rescue team, the Impolans had already performed the deed. I stayed with them because they offered me a way to help Earth that didn't exist before. I serve the Mimner as an ambassador and in return Earth gets an alliance that leads to them getting the PDS. I will do anything to save my people, Furling. I know you to be of the same mindset. You are, after all, the Orchestrator of the Purge, but I do not judge."

"No, but you lie, even now," Sieon countered calmly. When the Human turned to him, Sieon repeated, "'You wish to convince the Mimner to lower the veil of secrets he uses to protect the Gaajli by her own order? You help me save them and I will give you what you want.' Your tones and words reveal your identity."

"So they do," the man who pretends to be an alien for the people of Earth and serves as the 'Mimner' for his own people said. With that, he began to walk again and Sieon followed him if only for the curiosity of this whole situation. They reached a medical facility that had many things that Sieon would expect to find in a Furling hospital where several wounded were being treated with technology far in advance to anything Earth had short of a captured sarcophagus. "You will stabilize the three who will suffer most due to your race's interference in this reality," the 'Mimner' demanded.

"And if I don't?" Sieon asked out of simple curiosity.

"Jack may not look like much, and she may not be a Furling, but she has a very strong desire to live and in your current state you'd be hard-pressed to handle her," the Mimner said in a nonthreatening tone.

"You wager much on my ability to do something that I was never trained to do," Sieon pointed out.

"Even you would be surprised by the miracles Miguel can work with blood samples," the Mimner countered with a shrug of innocence.

The threat, however, was clear. Either he helped willingly, or his blood would be enough for them.

***Local Cluster (Sol System)***

**Earth (Surface)**

*FGN Paciscor of Nex (Combat Information Center) [twenty-four hours after the Battle for Earth]*

The Nex, despite being a very powerful vessel designed to fight wars in the stars, now rested unsteadily on the surface of the Indian Ocean off of the coast of Australia. In its command center at the heart of the ship, Sam sat in the Control Chair and looked around the room that was decked out in its three-hundred-sixty degree holographic projection of the surrounding area. She was learning the ship's systems faster than she thought possible, but having an AI onboard to explain things helped a lot. She found that if she focused her vision in one place while sitting in the chair, she could get the image to zoom-in. Small victories like this led to other, greater victories and she was slowly but surely developing a way to control the crippled warship the way it was meant to be controlled.

The 'key,' as Sieon had called it, was truly just a modified version of the ATA gene designed to give a person, and there was only enough of the serum Sieon handed them before leaving for one dose, just enough of a small sliver of Furling DNA to operate the ship, the FTA gene, if you will, and he had handed it to Sam specifically. Apparently the alien liked her more than she thought. And so, with Sieon's orders and Widget's insistence that the serum was for Sam and Sam alone, she had laid on a bed in the infirmary and gotten injected with alien DNA. She had the strangest job in the galaxy in her opinion.

The interface that the FTA formed between her and the Nex tuned both she to the ship and the ship to she. Sam could even 'feel' certain parts of the ship as her mind slowly adjusted to the powerful computers that ran the systems and Widget slowly began strengthening the connection in an effort to not overwhelm her mind all at once. As such, she could feel it as an itch in her legs as the engines were slowly pieced back together by a swarm of drones, a burning in her arms as the guns were rebuilt from scratch, and a numbness in various other parts of her body where the repairs had yet to so much as begin. It was exhilarating to be so in-touch with the inner workings of a ship and she could certainly see why the Ancients and Furlings had gone the route of the Control Chair.

"Okay, everything checks out. We'll start when you're ready," Widget said.

"No, 'but let the record show I'm against this,' this time?" Sam asked, her eyes still closed as she felt the ship as if it were her own body.

"Nope, not this time," Widget replied brightly. "I'm one-hundred percent certain that this will not result in your death, nor mental or bodily injury in any way whatsoever. We will proceed when you're ready," Widget said again, a smile in his tones that Sam could feel through her connection to the ship and the AI that lived within.

"Do it," she ordered.

"Strengthening neural link. Brace yourself, this will pinch," Widget warned as several dozen small pricks in her spine marked the places where the chair was interfacing with her nervous system. Those pricks went from the base of her spine to the base of her skull and even extended down her legs and arms, digging into various major nerve clusters across her body. Once the process was done, Widget gave one last warning. "Don't chase the rabbit," he said, an image of Alliance and Wonderland popping into her head through their connection.

"Pilot is engaged in neural bridge," Widget said as Sam opened her eyes and found herself standing in the CIC of the Nex, Widget beside her.

Her physical body, much to her unease, could be seen sitting in the chair behind where she stood in spectral form. She then turned to Widget who looked notably less… glow-y than he usually did. She reached out and touched him, her hand firmly pressed against the AI's chest which was, for the first time in her month or so of knowing him, a solid thing.

A very solid thing.

"Welcome to my world," Widget said with a bright smile as he took Sam's hand and the scene changed around them.

Sam perceived the change as a mass of spinning lights which had the unfortunate side-effect of making her woozy, but Widget's hand holding hers gave her something to 'anchor herself' to. She looked into his eyes and focused on how real this all felt. If she had food in her virtual stomach, she was sure she would've vomited.

And how did vomit in a computer system affect the operation of the computer? Was it real? Was it a virus to the computers? Or was it just random bits of knowledge thrown-up all over the place?

Sam shook the questions from her head with a small smile on her face. That was the weirdest question she'd ever asked herself. It was like asking what happens when Widget uses the restroom in the computers. There was no need for that so there were no bathrooms. Realizing her train of thought was still far from being where it needed to be, Sam refocused on the eyes staring back into hers.

When the spinning stopped, she finally looked away from him and took in their new scene. They were floating over the Indian Ocean… no, this wasn't an ocean of water and they weren't on Earth anymore. This was an ocean of knowledge. Millions of years' worth of gathered data, logs written by the greatest minds of four of the Five Great Races, schematics for devices Sam had never thought to create, the base work for quantum mechanics, the recorded going-ons of the entire galaxy… everything Widget knew, had seen or heard while connected to the Furling Stealth Satellite Network, everything he had experienced since being turned-on for the first time was stored here in this one place; the Nex's massive server banks.

What wasn't his knowledge sat off to the sides, great dams separating the different oceans, each one representing either the Ancient Database on Atlantis, the Asgard Computer Core which was still on the Odyssey, the Nex's server banks, or Earth's own internet and the servers that stored the collective knowledge of the Fifth Race.

"It's incredible!" Sam exclaimed as she took in the oceans. Each one began at her feet, the points of the dams meeting in the middle where something waited for them, then stretched far beyond the horizon of her perception. The collective knowledge of four species was a lot to behold even in a metaphorical sense.

"Now you see why I love being an AI," Widget said with another broad smile as he lowered them towards the oceans. "Don't chase the rabbit," he said again, more sternly, as their increasing proximity to the 'waves' and the 'salt-water spray' they kicked-up gave Sam a glimpse of little tidbits of information.

She had to focus past it. If she ran off and got lost in the oceans of data, she would never be found again. Widget had told her that much in warning before they began the process of getting her linked to the ship's computers roughly six hours ago.

"What does the galaxy look like?" Sam asked him and she could immediately feel herself slipping.

Her eyes opened and she took in the sight of thousands of civilizations and an untold number of worlds. Her ears heard radio broadcasts from all around the galaxy, buzzing in her ears like a million conversations happening all at once, all of them directed at her. She could feel the solar winds, the radiation of a galaxy, brushing over her skin. Then it was gone and she was breathing heavily as she sat up in the Control Chair.

"Don't. Chase. The rabbit!" Widget said again as Sam got her breathing under control.

She knew this was the real world because Widget was glowing and his voice had that electronic edge to it again. That, and she could feel her stomach rumbling in protest about her lack of eating today… and yesterday…

And the day before that.

"That was… strange," Sam said as she slowed her breathing.

"It's okay to think something, but try not to act on it. You have to realize that your subconscious mind is just as powerful as your conscious mind. Don't let it take control," Widget couched as Sam settled back into the chair and felt the needles pierce her skin again. Another needle pierced her arm and she opened an eye to see an IV being put in by a medical drone. She rolled her eyes behind her eyelids at Widget's babying her and focused on slipping back into the computerized world once more.

"Pilot is engaged in neural bridge," Widget said as a wave crashed against the dam and sent a cold wave washing over her. Sam pulled her arms in with a shiver as a jacket materialized around her. She was standing at the apex of the four great dams, ice-cold spray kicked up on all sides by roiling waves of information, and Widget standing beside her. "Knowledge has that effect on organics," Widget offered in way of explanation as he tugged that jacket around her more securely. "You don't call them 'cold hard facts' for no reason."

"And the jacket?" Sam asked.

"It's a firewall," Widget replied with a chuckle.

"And the waves?" This question, in particular, Sam wanted an answer to. Why there were waves in a fake ocean eluded her, and she didn't want to chase the rabbit again to find out for herself.

Widget tapped his chin with one finger on a tridactyl hand before shrugging in ignorance. "I think it's supposed to be a representation of my subconscious mind sorting the information or something, but I'm not really sure."

"You don't know?" Sam asked in utter shock.

"I'm not omniscient, Samantha Carter," Widget said indignantly. "I do, however, know you quite well."

"Oh?" Sam asked in a challenging tone.

"You are the daughter of Debra Carter and Jacob Carter who was a US Air Force Major-General before agreeing to become a Tok'ra Host to both survive his fatal case of cancer and secure Earth's alliance with the Tok'ra. You were born December Twenty-ninth, Nineteen-sixty-eight. You have a brother named Mark Carter who is married and has two kids; David and Lisa. You were named 'Samantha' because your father wanted a boy. As a child, you often sat on the willow tree in your backyard. On sunny days, the wind blowing through the leaves sounded exactly like rain when you closed her eyes. Replicator-Carter later possessed this same memory.

"Your mother, Debra Carter, sang 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' to you when you were a child. Your mother died in the early nineteen-eighties when you were twelve. You blamed your father because he was supposed to go pick her up at the airport but didn't which forced your mother to take a taxi. It was during that fateful taxi ride that your mother died in an accident. You spent a lot of time hating him for that, but eventually forgave him.

"You've always been exceptionally bright and went on to get a Ph.D. in astrophysics with extensive knowledge in quantum mechanics while attending the Air Force Academy. You worked at the Pentagon for two years and logged over one-hundred hours in enemy space during the Gulf War. You were assigned to work on the Stargate Project in nineteen-ninety-three, two years before Doctor Daniel Jackson had the same opportunity, and were a prominent member of investigating the sciences behind the device. You also helped develop the Dialing Computer.

"You fought tooth and nail to be part of the team to go through the Gate the first time, the first trip to Abydos when Daniel stayed behind. You wanted to go with Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson. The official reason they didn't let you go was due to the urgency to complete the important first mission on time. What was stopping you from being ready then in their eyes?" Widget asked. The whole time he spoke, little holographic 'screens' popped up showing everything from news reports on her mother's accident to classified military records.

"Did you just 'Wiki-walk' me?" Sam asked.

"No," Widget replied with a casual shrug. "I 'Wiki-walked' you and the rest of SG-1 a few weeks ago, specifically, before 'Wiki-walking' Earth as a whole."

"You weren't on Earth a few weeks ago," Sam pointed out skeptically.

"Your systems aren't that hard to hack from across the galaxy, Sam. Once I broke through the firewalls on your 'internet,' I learned enough about your coding to slip into backdoors in your military servers without leaving behind a trace. The only computers on Earth I couldn't hack without being detected were the ones you upgraded with the technology you got from the Stargate Program."

"Right," Sam said while suppressing another shiver and pulling the jacket closer to her. "What do we look for first?" Sam asked making a point to keep her eyes locked directly ahead of her where Widget's own stared back at her. The look of amusement in his eyes at his invading her personal life so completely made Sam want to slap the look off of his face.

"Good thinking," the AI said with a warm smile that actually made her feel warmer. "Mental anchors always help. Now, to answer your question, we begin with a solid idea," Widget replied as a hologram appeared between them. Unbeknownst to Sam, that same hologram had appeared over her corporeal being as well. It was the basic schematic of the Daedalus-class before any of the Post-Fifth Race Upgrades, or, more simply, the 304 B. "Instead of something new, like the Prometheus becoming the Daedalus, let's take the Daedalus and make it something greater like the Goa'uld did with the various types of Ha'tak."

"I've never been one to say that size matters, but we need a bigger class of ship," Sam said as she reached out and pulled on the Daedalus until it was stretched to new dimensions. Widget then shifted the hologram and made the new projection look more natural by fixing the proportions. "That will let us put the Neutrino Ion Generators in without sacrificing as much space as we did in the Post-Fifth Race Upgrades. If we put in two of the Neutrino Ion Generators, it'll reduce our reliance on ZPMs for that needed power boost. The increased size also allows us to install more weapons across the hull. I know what you're gonna say," Sam stopped Widget from speaking, "but we barely survived the Ori. If we're going to handle another hundred ships with a limited fleet, then we need a better class of Battlecruiser."

"I wasn't going to argue," Widget said with a chuckle. Being in 'his world' really made him seem real. All of his expressions and sounds were so… pure. "Just because I can read your mind, Samantha, does not mean that you can read mine. Now, to point out a fatal flaw in that, keep in mind that an increase in size means an increase in the size of your dry-dock slips. How do you solve that problem?" Widget asked.

"The Cursor," Sam said after a moment of thought. "Its matter converters were designed to be used on other ships, and if it can repair the Odyssey on the fly in the middle of the void between planets, then it can upgrade the slips to the new standards that Pac developed. The ship might not be battle capable, but, unlike the Nex, its conversion systems are still operational, and, unlike the Odyssey, its converters were designed for this type of work. We can have all of the upgrades to the slips done in two days if we use the Cursor."

"Two days per slip," Widget corrected.

"Right," Sam said after noting that she'd left that fact out. "Still, that means we can just convert the Apollo into this new class instead of repairing her then building the new class of ship. If we use the new slip upgrades to dismantle the ship down to the space frame, which is shot to hell and filled with cracks anyway, then it'll be a one-hundred percent efficient recycling effort and half of the new ship is covered by that material alone. The other half is easily covered by our remaining stores of trinium and naquadah, but we'll need more raw materials for the other ships if we want to speed up the process."

"What else?" Widget asked as he kept making changes based on her suggestions.

"The fighter bays," Sam said. "You have the recorded data on the Battlestar Pegasus the captured Baseship brought back with it, right?" Sam asked to which Widget nodded. The Baseship in question, like the Ares was at the Alpha Site. Unlike the Ares, it had been sent there to keep the useless ship from being destroyed during the fight with the Ori. "I like their fighter bay designs. One on top of the other and fighters launching from the sides. That, and a redesign for the 302s."

"One thing at a time, Sam," Widget warned. "Don't. Chase. The rabbit."

"Right," Sam said as she took a deep breath and pushed the 302s from her mind.

"What are you going to call it?" Widget asked.

"The Achilles," Sam replied with a smile on her face that spoke wonders for why she had chosen that name. It would be the Achilles Heel, not of Earth, but of her enemies. A few changes to the design later, and the Achilles was shaping up to be a very powerful ship.

"Now you can focus on your fighters," Widget said as the new design was finalized and saved under a file marked 'Achilles-class Heavy Cruiser.'

"Once again, I want to take a page from the Colonials' book," Sam said as the 302 was projected into their virtual world next to a Colonial Viper they scanned after bringing one back with them from the tylium mine all those weeks ago. "The maneuverability of the Colonial fighter craft is something I'd like to try and duplicate."

"You'll have to increase the z-axis of the new design to pull that off," Widget noted and the nose of the 302 was extended to an appropriate size. "Changing out the multi-stage engines for a Furling fighter's engine design and getting rid of the hyperdrive you never use will open up space for a more stable generator and that will allow for more technologies to be utilized."

"Like shields," Sam said. Then she had a double take. "That's not entirely true. We used them to launch an attack on the Cylon Resurrection ship to buy the Pegasus enough time to regroup with the Colonial Fleet. It comes in handy every now and again."

"That's hardly a reason to keep it," Widget countered. "With the modifications made to your 304 Bs, the dampeners will never overload like that again, and a full replacement for the system is now standard cargo these days. Keeping the 302s' hyperdrive isn't advisable. Maybe make a subclass of fighters that will keep them, but don't make it standard issue. It's a waste of space and power."

"Okay, then we need to figure out the systems," Sam agreed.

"Using a Furling engine design, a Tau'ri fighter frame, Colonial flight tech, and Asgard computers might make things difficult for the pilot to handle. That many different systems won't be easy to handle all at once with an organic mind."

"What about a VI to handle the interfacing of the systems?" Sam asked.

"That would solve some problems, but not all," Widget replied with a shake of his head, his hair, because he had hair, waving around as he did. "It would be better to redesign the Furling engines and Colonial flight tech from the ground up to fit the…" Widget continued before stopping as Sam ran her fingers through his hair. "Can I help you?" Widget asked in a confused tone.

Sam shook her head and pulled her hand back. "Sorry, it's just weird that I can touch you. Weirder still is that you feel so real!"

"This is my world, Sam. I'm as real here as I want to be, and I want very much to be real," Widget replied in a tone of longing. "Now, back to the matter at hand. It would be better to redesign the Furling engines and Colonial flight tech from the ground up to fit the new fighter rather than tacking it onto the 302 after the fact. We may be looking at an entirely new fighter concept instead of a modified one stop touching me!" Widget exclaimed as Sam poked him in the stomach.

"Sorry," Sam said again as she blushed in both the virtual world and the real world.

"The Achilles may still resemble the Daedalus, but the new fighter will most likely look nothing like the original 302," Widget continued as the fighter was changed drastically as they added to and took away from it.

The blueprints for each component was altered to be able to be produced by Earth's current industry and programmed with a new, more efficient coding that would later become the standard for all Tau'ri operating systems that dealt with technology from multiple species. Then the flight frame was changed. It looked like the 302's wings, which normally curved down and forwards towards the cockpit, had been twisted so that they curved down and backwards towards the engine compartment. They were also shorter. The elongated nose was still present, as was the cockpit, but everything else was different. The fighter wasn't so wide anymore, and actually looked like something that both belonged in space and to the people of Earth as opposed to a modified Death Glider.

"Couple that with a VI and the fighter will be far easier for the pilots to handle," Widget said as the design came together, a fabrication of two minds working together with all the knowledge of four powerful races.

"Nice," Sam said as the finalized design was saved and the scene changed again as Widget took her hand. When the swirling lights stopped, they were standing in the CIC again, but there were two Widgets, two Sams, and one Jack.

"Whoa," Jack said, his voice, oddly enough, with an electronic edge to it.

"You're still in the computers," Widget replied, his voice still comparatively normal.

"That's weird," Jack commented as he looked between the two Sams which prompted Sam to look down at her own hands and realize she was a hologram.

"No joke," she agreed with her superior officer as she stared through her hands at her body lying in the Control Chair. "Widget, how do I…" Sam began as she felt herself fading. Sam, once the nauseating swirl of colors ended, opened her organic eyes and took in the sight before her. Jack was standing off to one side with Widget, and Sam had to shake off the mental funk of having been in a virtual world for so long. "What time is it?" she asked

"About midnight local-time," Jack replied, his voice back to normal. "How are you feeling?"

"Dizzy," Sam replied without moving.

"It's to be expected," Widget assured them, his voice once again electronically distorted. "If she hadn't have taken the gene therapy, it would've killed her."

"Excuse me?" Jack asked, concern clearly evident in his tone.

"It's like your expose to the Ancient Repository of Knowledge," Widget explained and Sam had to shake her head at that. Having heard his voice the way it was meant to sound, she found the electronic edge to be… wrong. "You had the ATA gene before you were affected by the machine. It's the only reason the exposure didn't kill you. Sam concept, different species."

"So I can sit in that chair and interface with the ship too?" Jack asked.

"Only if you want to die from knowledge overdose-induced hemorrhaging," Widget replied in a warning tone. "If Sieon hadn't of made the 'key,' we would've been screwed."

"Screwed how?" Jack asked.

"As screwed as the Atlantis Expedition would've been without any members with the ATA gene. Sam, essentially, has been given the FTA gene. In order to keep me from going haywire and killing all organics like the Cylons, the Nex's primary systems require someone with Furling DNA to power up the ship. I can operate basic things like the shields and jammers freely, but when the Ori attacked P3X-727 Sieon had to get to the Control Chair and unlock the other systems before I could respond to the threat."

"If they had so little faith that you wouldn't turn against them, why did the Furlings still install you on the ship?" Sam asked.

"One of the wars the Furlings fought was against an AI race that they created themselves," Widget admitted as a bipedal robotic body appeared before them in holographic form. "The reason they mistrust me lies in that war. The reason they trust me lies in Rana's changes to my Foundation. The personality matrix that makes me semi-organic is why they put me in the systems across the fleet. The fact that I'm still subject to rampancy is why I'm still limited in function in every computer I'm installed in."

"You keep saying 'me' and 'I'," Sam noted.

"Fracture code, remember?" Widget asked to which Sam nodded. "I'm the… 'father' to the entire 'race' of Furling Smart AIs. I was the first one they made with the complete code, the first one given True Consciousness, and the first one set free. Every AI that came after me was a fracture of my code mixed with a new personality matrix."

"Why?"

Widget shrugged in reply to Sam's question. "If you get it right once, why change it?"

"What's rampancy?" Jack asked when their conversation was finally at a stopping point.

"The AI equivalent of going insane," Sam replied casually.

"Murderously so," Widget added with an evil cackle and a look on his face that said, 'I'm coming for you!'

"Don't do that," Sam ordered as a shiver ran down her spine, one that was, in no way, born of cold. It was actually rather warm in the ship with the FSR still exposed like it was. "Ever."

***Milky Way Galaxy (Norma Arm)***

**Topeka (En Route)**

*Goa'uld Forces (Scouting Party in Nearby System) [thirty hours after the Battle for Earth]*

Ba'al had ordered his First Prime to do the impossible; retake Topeka from the hostile forces that had claimed it. He had planned on using a pinching maneuver, attacking their ground and orbital forces at once, but every time they attempted to connect to the planet, the Chappa'ai on Ba'al's homeworld wouldn't link to the one on Topeka. In an attempt to better ascertain the enemy's strength, two Al'kesh were to be sent ahead to scout the enemy forces.

Ba'al's counter-fleet was waiting about a hyperspace minute from Topeka. The hangar doors of one of the Ha'tak opened and the two Al'kesh launched without a sound. Engaging their cloaking devices, the small ships moved towards the planet.

'And now we wait,' Zune thought to himself.

The wait, however, was far shorter than he could've anticipated. Out of flashes of light and spikes of energy, three ships appeared. Two ships matched the design of the enemy's capital ships while the third was unlike anything Zune had ever seen before.

"Destroy the warships, but capture the third vessel!" Zune ordered confidently.

As the enemy capital ships opened fire with nuclear missiles, the third ship disappeared from their sensors. "The target vessel has engaged a cloaking a field," the Jaffa manning the sensors reported.

"Enemy capital ships have broken off their attack and are now fleeing," another Jaffa reported.

"Chase them down!" Zune ordered vigorously. He needed to win this battle or Ba'al would surely kill him and the element of surprise was all he had to counter the overwhelming numbers arrayed against him. Five Ha'tak chased the capital ships through space before the enemy vessels, under heavy fire, jumped away, leaving the third, unknown ship behind. "Prepare for hyperspace jump, we mustn't let the enemy engage us here. Move the fleet to the far side of the planet."

Fifteen Ha'tak jumped into hyperspace… fifteen out of forty. "A large portion of the fleet is experiencing trouble with their hyperdrives. They cannot jump and two of them have vented their crews into space. What are your orders?"

"Whatever that ship was that cloaked must be affecting their systems. Order the launch of their Al'kesh and Gliders, they're to blow through the hangar doors if necessary, then set the reactors on those ships to overload. Rendezvous us with the rest of the fleet," Zune said gravely, knowing that he had just lost the bulk of his forces.

*Cylon Forces (Resurrection Ship) [a few moments earlier]*

"Well this is just great. We've jumped right into the middle of the enemy fleet!" Cavil moaned. He and Caprica had just been testing the sub-space equipped Resurrection Ship's range by jumping off of a cliff and being revived on the ship, and were now on their way back to the Colony to report their survival.

"Cloak the ship and order the Baseships to retreat. Once their FTL coils are spoiled up, order them to jump," Caprica calmly ordered.

"Are you mad? You want us to stay here without our guard?" Cavil asked.

"Relax brother, they can't detect us, and besides. Now is the perfect moment to see if our refined virus will affect their systems," Caprica said as she placed her hand in the link and ordered the virus to be sent.

Cavil placed his hand in the link as well and stopped the broadcast. "Are you mad? Broadcasting that message could give us away!"

"Have faith, Brother. Another Resurrection Ship is in orbit of the planet. Even if they do destroy us, we'll be safe," Caprica said as she leaned in on the short man and ground her teeth in anger.

"Very well, Sister, but be quick. We need to report their position before they leave," Cavil sneered.

"That's why the Baseships are jumping ahead of us. If we can capture their ships, we can study working versions of their technologies," Caprica insisted.

"Ah, now I see your logic," Cavil said with a smirk.

"'Now'? Brother, you insult me. You doubted my abilities?" Caprica asked in fake pain.

"They're launching ships," D'Anna said. Looking out of any of the many windows that composed the Resurrection Ship, they could all see as the hangar bay doors were blown open and out of them flew all of the Jaffa's fighters and bombers.

"Send a message back to the Colony, tell them we've captured a significant portion of the enemy fleet, but fifteen ships got away along with all of their fighter support," Simon said as he observed the scene.

**Topeka (Orbit)**

*Cylon Colony (Consensus Room)*

"Should we move the Colony or not?" Leoben asked.

"Of course we should. Until the upgrades are complete, the Colony is vulnerable. I will not risk our home when our Baseships are perfectly able to defeat these Ha'tak," Boomer replied smoothly.

"I agree with our Sister," another Four said. "We shouldn't risk the Colony when the Baseships are perfectly expendable. Once we've upgraded all of the systems and finished the armor modifications we'll be able to leave it in orbit of planets during battles. Until then, it means too much to the Cylon race to be unnecessarily risked."

"Where do we put it then?" Boomer asked.

"We jump it closer to the system's star, and let it recharge the solar batteries," a Six said as she joined the conversation. "We should do it soon, too. Caprica and Cavil report that all of the enemy's fighter support and mid-range bombers are inbound. It's safe to assume the capital ships will closely follow."

"We'll need to be sure and keep them from bombarding our mining operations. If the caves collapse, it'll be an unnecessary pain to clear all that rubble," Aaron added.

*Cylon Fleet*

After collecting the last of the Heavy Raiders that were acting as cargo ships for the naquadah, a flash of light signaled the disappearance of the Colony. The Baseships took up position to guard the mines from orbit while launching their Raiders to handle any fighters that made it through. A moment later, all but ten Baseships jumped to the edge of the system.

A second later, fifteen Ha'tak dropped out of the swirling vortex of hyperspace and rapidly decelerated back into sub-space. As the Ha'tak closed in on the ten Baseships, they opened fire believing themselves to be facing an inferior foe. These ten Baseships were the first to, upon Cavil's constant nagging for the need of shielded Baseships, received Goa'uld shielding technology. A signal was sent back to the Cylon fleet and fifty more Baseships jumped in to surround the Ha'tak.

With ten in the middle and fifty pushing them closer to those ten, it was time to reveal the final surprise. A series of hatches opened along the ten Baseships' hulls and plasma cannon prototypes slid out. Now the battle really started as the Ha'tak found themselves pinned down by the fifty normal Baseships that were still pounding their shields with conventional missiles while the ten modified Baseships used their own weapons against them, although in greater number.

It was a short battle and once again a one-sided slaughter. The Cylons, unlike the Goa'uld, could instantly flee the battlefield by jumping out before they took enough damage to be destroyed. The Ha'tak, surrounded by Baseships as they were, were unable to gain enough speed to enter hyperspace and were, therefore, stuck. The battle ended when the last Ha'tak managed to punch a big enough hole in the Cylon line to jump out. One out of forty got away. Definitely a Cylon victory.

*Cylon Colony (Consensus Room)*

"Well," Caprica began as she read over the post-battle report, "the cloaking device works, our virus is once again effective, the upgraded Baseships proved to be very useful, their shields held quiet well, and the plasma cannons proved to be far more lethal against their shields than our nukes. All-in-all, my brothers and sisters, I believe the Cylons are well on their way to defeating these Jaffa. Congratulations all around!"

"Yes, we've managed to hold the planet and test our new upgrades. Now the question is, 'where do we go from here?' Naquadah is the key to everything and we are running out," Cavil pointed out.

"If that's not bad enough, we're also running low on tylium," D'Anna added. "Since the Colonials took the only mine we had that was conceivably nearby then nuked the entire stockpile into uselessness on their way out, we need to either find more, or make our ships run off of naquadah, but, as Brother Cavil has said, we are running out of that quickly as well."

"We've set aside enough naquadah to finish upgrading the Colony," Boomer said. "If we devote all of our time to finishing that project we'll be in a position to leave the fleet here while we use the Colony to search for one fuel source or the other. With the Colony running off of Naquadah Generators and our newly advanced jump-drives, we'll be able make bigger jumps with more accuracy and take less energy to do so. With the new weapons, armor, shields, and cloaking technologies along with our existing mining equipment we'll be able to defend against attack and find the fuel we need to get the fleet moving again."

"Before you protest, Brother Cavil, we can have the Raiders' tylium supplies supplemented by the Baseships' supplies so that they can jump inside of the enemy's shields and destroy them that way as well. Or, since the virus is working again, we can just take the enemy ships for ourselves and use them to scout out the resources we need while we hide and use what we have to continue our advancements. Once the captured fleet reports back with the information we need to jump the fleet to the next tylium or naquadah source, we can mobilize then," Caprica quickly added.

"It seems logical, but I'd rather just continue mining this planet for all its worth, while the Ha'tak we've captured search for the resources we need. Once the mine is truly depleted, I vote we hide the fleet by the system's star where the solar collectors can help keep us going," D'Anna commented.

"Jumping from star to star collecting energy like that could take us weeks to leave this cluster alone!" Cavil sneered.

"You have a better idea?" D'Anna countered. When Cavil offered no better option, the vote was cast.

Consensus decided on a mix of all the proposed plans. The captured fleet would be manned by Centurions, since the Resurrection Ships couldn't keep up with the Ha'tak and the Centurions were viewed as expendable, and sent looking for one needed resource or another. Ninety percent of the Cylon workforce would be devoted to finishing the Colony while the other ten percent would mine the planet for all it was worth. This left the Baseships' upgrades on hold until further notice.

Eighty percent of the fleet would be at the system's star gathering energy in power cells that could be handed off from one ship to another. Once their cells were done charging, they would fly back using sub-light engines, as jumping was restricted for when needed only, and exchange them for depleted ones then fly back to star to repeat the process. The other twenty percent of the fleet would stand guard over the Colony until its upgrades were complete. The Cylons were settling in for a long campaign.

***Milky Way Galaxy (Ba'al's Territory)***

**Third Gas Giant from the Star (Lunar Orbit)**

*Zeta Site (Rumble Dome) [forty-eight hours after the Battle for Earth]*

So named for both its shape and tendency to be constantly shaken by explosions, the Rumble Dome was the room used to test new weapon designs and allowed people to blow off steam in organized fights. Today, the Rumble Dome was playing host to a battle between three people with extraordinary abilities.

Sieon's body glowed a deep shade of blue, purple, and black mixed together in a magnificent cacophony of power. That swirling aura of power around his body seeped into the rocks beneath him before, with a heave and a kick, the Furling sent a rock the size of tank flying across the large cavern. With a nimbus of bright, blazing blues like the ever shifting color of flames consuming her body, Jack shouted a profanity before slamming her fist through that rock. A cloud of dust consumed her as she pulverized the boulder before moving forward. She crossed twenty meters in a single step, as usual, but with a new twist. This time, her body left a streak of red light in the wake of its passing. 'Red Shifting,' as Sieon had called it, allowed that twenty meters to be crossed more quickly. As such, Jack was moving at the speed of red light waves.

To those watching them fight, Jack stood in two places at once as her body moved faster than their eyes could see. Then, with a boom of air slamming back together in the wake of her passage, she was standing in a new location. With another shout, this one a war cry, she 'Charged,' for this was the term Sieon had taught them for such an ability, forward and slammed her glowing fist into Sieon 'Biotic Barrier,' another Furling term taught to them to simplify explanations. Uniformity had a way of simplifying most things.

Sieon, despite Jack's best efforts, caught her fist in his hand. Never one to be so easily beaten, Jack used what was left of her arrested momentum and swung her foot up. Sieon caught that too and held her there, her left wrist in one hand, her right ankle in the other. With a smirk, the Furling drew in a deep breath and readied an attack.

In a flash of silver and a blur of blue light, 'Blue Shifting' according to Sieon, Ry slid across the ground and took the alien's feet out from under him with all the speed of blue light waves which traveled faster than red and slower than green which, in turn, is slower than white light (because keeping up with all of that isn't a headache waiting to happen). As the practically invincible alien fell to the ground and Ry rose from his slide, Jack landed on her feet and gathered the Furling in another biotic field. She threw Sieon into the ceiling with a crunch then slammed him into the ground with the force of an SR's original main gun firing.

Shrugging off the blow that hadn't managed to make so much as a dent in his Barrier, but did leave a lattice of cracks in the solid rock beneath his impact site, Sieon flicked his wrist at Jack and the woman was sent flying away from him on a Shockwave of biotic force that rolled across the ground and kicked up dust in the wake of its passage. As he spun to his feet like a break-dancer, Sieon gathered his biotic energy at his heels and sent a pulse of energy radiating out from his spin. This one caught Ry in the chest, but his body was covered by a silver Barrier much the same as Sieon's own, albeit a different color.

After stumbling back a few steps, Ry gathered the glow in his hands and, punching the air like a shadowboxer, sent first one then another orb of energy flying at the Furling. The first was what Sieon called a 'Warp.' It worked by distorting space-time in a localized field and tore matter apart on the molecular level. The second was a simple 'Throw' field that was similar to being punched in the impact site by a fully-loaded freight train moving at one-hundred-sixty miles per hour. As Sieon had informed them, a constant effect like a Warp, Pull, Lift, Singularity or several other higher moves that neither of the Humans had mastered yet, being hit by a Throw, Shockwave, Flare, or Kick caused the constant field to destabilize enough to detonate with added force.

Thusly affected, Sieon flew across the Rumble Dome and slammed into the far wall not a dozen meters from where he had sent Jack to the same fate. With another blue-shifted Charge that left a silver trail in his wake, Ry was flying at the Furling, his body in two-places at once, but, despite a dozen hours of intensive training, Sieon was still the only master biotic present, which, admittedly, made sense. The Furling was, after all, several million years old. With a shimmer that ran the length of his entire body, Sieon's physical form seemed to melt away and become immaterial. As such, Ry's fist, glowing with great force, passed through the Furling's not-physical-body and buried itself so deep in the wall that even his elbow was encased in stone.

Floating like a cloud upon the breeze, Sieon's body was forced away from Ry by the impact then shimmered again as he put his body back together. He then spun, foot glowing forcefully, and aimed a kick at Ry's armored kidneys. His foot made it to within an inch of impacting the immobile man when a thread of energy latched itself to his ankle. The other end of that 'Thread' was held in Jack's hand, her body glowing as she pulled against the alien's superior physical and biotic strength in a bid to keep him from delivering the blow that would surely bypass Ry's armor and take him out of the fight.

With a deep glow that made the man hard to see through the thick nimbus of swirling silver, Ry forced his effort into directing his power until the rock that encased his arm exploded outward in fragments of stone. Forgoing an attack, he planted one foot in the hole that his impact and escape had left in the wall then Charged vertically into the air. As he did, Jack let her Thread go and Sieon's foot passed through where Ry's body had been, a mere centimeter between Ry's heel and Sieon's toe that glowed with entropic force. When he reached the apex of his flight, Ry placed his hand on the wall and pushed off. With another boom, his fall became a more reasonable downward drift as the Human landed thirty meters behind where Jack and Sieon were, even now, exchanging a series of biotic attacks.

When she took one too many hits and her barrier threatened to collapse, Jack slammed her foot down and pulled up with her hands. A section of stone torn free of the surrounding rock rose up in a half-wall that she quickly ducked behind. Sieon, unhindered by such a meager thing as solid stone, widened his stance, planted his feet, and started moving his arms in graceful arcs. As he did, the glow of his biotics began to trail behind his movements as the power on his fingertips reached so great a level that even the master biotic had difficulty controlling it.

That was bad news no matter the way you told it.

Ry Charged again, twenty meters crossed in a single step, and Sieon brought his arms before his chest as the power ran across his body and gathered in one three-fingered hand. As that arm reached forward, power still flowing but this time with the obvious intent to be released all at once, Ry took another step, his body glowing, and the world around him slowed. The bolt of biotic energy surged towards where Jack was hiding behind a low wall of stone, unaware of her danger, but Ry was ahead of it… barely.

He grabbed Jack with a Thread of his own that latched onto her scalp and flew past her all at the same time. As he did, the Thread drew taut and drug her behind him. Jack's toes passed through the danger zone so narrowly to the bolt that blasted through the rock that her Barrier and the Bolt of raw power exchanged energy. The Bolt arced out and sent tendrils of power up her body. Her Barrier, barely restored to something akin to half strength, took the brunt of the blow, but still left a partial amount of a fraction of the attack to course through her body.

Even that amount was enough to cause her face to twist into a rictus of pain and agony. Ry, upon finishing his Charge, released his hold on the nearly three-hundred year-old woman in a twenty year-old woman's body and turned to face the alien attacking them.

"You're a quick study, I'll give you that," Sieon said with an approving nod.

"And you are a most ill-equipped instructor," Ry replied as he settled into a stance that would give him mobility in any direction he required at a moment's notice.

"I never was one for teaching," Sieon said with an indifferent shrug. He then moved his arm in a single sweeping motion at waste level, all of his biotic power conforming to his will.

The energy left his fingertips in a brilliant and graceful arc that moved towards Ry like a massive knife in flight. Responding the one way his damaged mind figured the Furling would least expect, Ry threw his hands down formed into fists and forced the rock beneath him to do the same. The biotic field compressed the stone as much as it could and sunk the Human into the ground until only his chest and above was left not in the hole. He then threw his fists forward in that same fashion and sent a Shockwave through the stone instead of over it.

The stone exploded into fragments that flew into the air propelled by his biotics. As they flew, Sieon's arc of energy cut through them with a disturbing ease, but Ry was below the attack and thusly safe. Sieon, however, was directly in the focus of Ry's counterattack. The razor-sharp stones exploded forth from the ground and pelted the Furling en mass. As the energy of his biotics had been largely spent in the 'Bolt' and 'Sweeping Blade,' as Ry was calling them in his head, Sieon's Barrier collapsed under the onslaught of fragments and he was forced to throw his armored hands over his unprotected face to prevent his eyes from being impaled.

As the fragments finished falling, Ry was moving. He jumped out of his hole and Charged forward to deliver his first successful punch to the Furling's gut. The blow landed with all the force he could muster in his worn-out state, but was more than enough to double the Furling over in pain. A quick, non-biotic elbow to the back of the Furling's head, non-biotic because Ry was not a cruel man and would not inflict unrepairable damage to a man already suffering from a head wound, was enough to topple the Ancient alien over. Quickly regathering the very last of his energy, Ry locked the Furling in a skin-tight biotic field that prevented bodily movement; a move Sieon called a 'Stasis Field' despite the fact that it did nothing to keep someone alive. As he did, a round of applause went up from the crowd observing the battle from the safety of the shield-covered, stadium-like seating off to one side.

Ry, despite his damaged mind, smiled to himself. As he did, he let the Stasis Field dissolve and walked over to where Jack was picking herself up. He offered her a hand which, despite her usually over-aggressive attitude towards everyone who wasn't Tommy or Oliver, she accepted with a grunt. The two Humans then walked towards the door to the room, their Furling mentor following behind with a slight limp.

That was unexpected. Sieon was considered to be the most powerful organic known to the Human race ranked directly under an Ascended Being. To have been so injured…

Ry's mind then had an 'ah ha,' moment as he remembered the head wound. The Furling was still incapable of reading minds while his brain healed. He had not seen Ry's attack coming as he normally would have. Having been able to read minds their whole lives, it made sense that a Furling thusly afflicted would be less than ably capable to read the body language of a member of an alien species.

As they exited the Rumble Dome, Ry slightly supporting Jack's still shaken form, they entered the medical care center that was across the hall. Sieon sat in a chair near a device that he had pulled from the Archives and built using a few scrap pieces he found around the base while Ry stooped low, swept Jack off her feet, and laid her on the bed. She had stopped complaining about his help after their fourth battle against Sieon when the Furling had broken her leg… by accident… mostly by accident. Now, she had three people that she was not openly hostile to and Ry was, oddly enough, honored to be amongst them.

"How's the head?" Oliver asked from the other side of the room where another door led to another hall way.

To make access easier, the medical care facilities were located near the center of the facility and had four doors leading into it so that you could reach it easily from any direction. Oliver appeared from the door that led towards the mines, his question, oddly enough (though Ry found it odd that he was capable of finding anything to be anything short of nothing after his encounter with the Furling machine that had so afflicted him), was directed at Ry and not the Furling.

"I do not understand the context of the question," Ry replied stoically. Having been stricken of his emotions by the machine that made him a biotic, it was, once again, odd that Ry could find something odd. It was also odd that he kept rethinking things. And finding things to be 'odd.' That was also odd. And he was rethinking things again. How strange…

"You've been acting different lately," Oliver observed.

"Have I?" Ry asked simply.

In a motion so fluid and quick that Ry immediately concluded it was muscle memory drilled into him by his instructors, whoever they may be, Oliver reached to his belt and drew, not a knife as Ry might've expected of the child-archer-turned-assassin-turned-soldier, but a phone. There was a brief flash of light as a picture was taken then Oliver walked over and showed Ry the subject of the image. He stared at the picture contemplatively, then Oliver lowered a mirror down that allowed him to see his face as he looked at a picture of his face. In the picture, he had a bemused look on his face. In his reflection, there was a look of shock on his features.

"That… should not be possible," Ry observed, his reflection now showing confusion on his face despite his voice not changing.

"You told me to stabilize him," Sieon said simply from where he sat with a needle in his arm that the machine he sat under was using to administer some type of treatment. "I did the best I could."

"You actually fixed his emotional processors?" Oliver asked, the Italian's face now the one a mask of confusion. "Our best medical minds told us that was impossible."

"Furling medicine is still far in advance to your own," Sieon replied as the needle was withdrawn from his arm and his skin could be seen moving as something beneath it did the same and caused the affect.

"You have implanted nannites in my brain," Ry observed.

"Yes," Sieon confirmed as the nannites in his arm moved up his appendage and towards his swollen brain, "but, when we use them for medical purposes, we call them 'nannomites.' When used for construction, we call them 'nannotrites.' Only when they are programed to simply replicate are they called nannites."

"They're not harmful to him, are they?" Oliver asked.

"Not unless you find an entity greater in strength than Furling AI-programmed firewalls," Sieon replied simply as he rubbed at his head for a few seconds. Once the pain of having small robots crawling around in his skull subsided, Sieon asked, "Are you going to allow me access to the computer now?" in a tone of voice closer to what he sounded like when SG-1 first met him.

"You have the boxes?" Oliver asked.

"Of course."

"And you've given Miguel what he needs to continue their treatments?"

"This machine will stay with you, and has been programed to do as you need it to."

"Then follow me," Oliver said before walking away.

*Zeta Site (Black Bunker)*

All it took was his presence. Sieon's foot… not even that, his toe entered the Bunker and the entire thing came to life. As he stepped fully into the facility, Oliver behind him, the Black Bunker began to hum and the lighting that was implanted into the walls in patterns that Gabi had determined to be a form of data storage (Furlings were indeed a strange race) changed from the varying shades of green that they had been since the Humans found the bunker and began to glow blue, orange, purple, green, white, red, and yellow. A rainbow of colors as different systems came online and the Data Lines, again, a name Gabi had informed them of after her exposure to the Device, began feeding different information to the various new systems.

'Furling technology is weird,' Oliver noted to himself as he followed the Furling himself into the Bunker.

"This is in line with what I would've expected," Sieon noted with a nod.

"Nice bunker you've got here," Oliver agreed with a nod.

"It's not a bunker," Sieon replied with a shake of his head. "You Humans have a problem with assuming that too often."

"This is a ship?!" Oliver asked in a shocked tone.

"Why else would it be equipped with a Furling FTL drive?" Sieon asked rhetorically. He then reached out and touched the machine that had caused them so much trouble over the past three years. Sieon's body glowed and the light seemed to leave his body to enter the machine. The device, in response to that energy, flared to life despite the fact that they had literally cut its power lines to prevent it from doing anything to the others that came down here on a daily basis.

As it did, Oliver noted something he thought to be as impossible as the machine turning on in its current state. Sieon's hand was bleeding where one of his fingers had been cut by the shards of rock. That was something that warranted study, so Oliver stepped forward to better enter the bunker-that-was-really-a-ship and pointed around the corner.

"The computer is that way," Oliver said and the Furling turned away from the machine to go the suggested direction. As he did, the machine stopped glowing. Only then did Oliver reach towards the machine, a handkerchief covering his ungloved hand, to wipe the blood onto the cloth before tucking it into his pocket, the blood protected from the fabric of his jeans by the rest of the handkerchief.

Sieon had, by now, only taken two steps away from him. With one step of his own, Oliver moved to follow the Furling, but there was a growing hum beside him followed by a pulse of distortion that he knew all too well. His eyes went wide as bunched the muscles in his legs and prepared to jump away from the Device. He didn't even finish coiling his muscles before he was being torn from his feet and dangled before the Device. Just like the two before him, the Device did as it was programmed to and began altering his body on the base level of his genetic structure.