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.

37. Post Disclosure Part 2: Rising Power

This week is the last week of posting for this book. I don't know when the next book will be up, but this is the end of Colonials on the Run. Interesting enough, I still have the original version of this book saved to my computer and I did a comparison. The original was 193,495 words long (according to Word which counts differently than Fanfic does). The Redux? After I was done with the rewrite, the Redux stands at 382,337 words. That's nearly twice the length of the original, and the bulk of it was adding in more of the Colonials and Odyssey being together. Yup, that was definitely worth it. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Enjoy the last week of posting!

Chapter 36

Post Disclosure Part 2

Rising Power

Seven Months Post-Disclosure:

---

"If you can form a biotic field capable of holding in air, you gain a significant advantage," Sieon instructed from his place, once again, at the head of the 'class.' "If the enemy uses a chemical weapon against you and you're not wearing a helmet, what do you do? Run? Charge? If you do, you'll stir the air and pull the gas along with you. Instead, you form a Barrier," Sieon said as Rana popped the cap off of a smoke grenade and tossed it at him. As the smoke came out of the can, Sieon erected a Barrier that held the smoke at bay.

"Atmospheric retentive barriers can be used to stop air-born toxins from reaching you. They can also be used as weapon," Rana added as she sauntered over to her mate, and, with a twisting motion of her hand, wrapped Sieon's head in a Barrier that stopped the air from reaching his lungs. "Being able to suffocate someone without touching them," Rana said without flinching or seemingly caring as Sieon fell to his knees unable to breath, "is a boon to any situation. The key to an unstoppable offense is an unbreakable defense. The key to an unbreakable defense is an unstoppable offense. If you lack one, find someone who can make up for that weakness," Rana continued as Sieon's body pulsed and the Barrier around his head popped, "and you'll find yourself in the company of your other half."

With a deep breath to sate his aching lungs, Sieon added, "Your combat partner has to be able to read your motions as well as you know them yourself. If they know when and how you'll strike, they can add their strength to your own. Observe," Sieon said as he Rana stood back to back.

"Strike," Rana ordered of the assembled Humans.

The Humans shared glances between one another. Did the Furlings really want to take on forty trained soldiers hardened in the fires of combat? That hesitation proved to be the cause of great and terrible pain.

Sieon pushed himself into Rana's back and the woman hooked one of his elbows with her own before ducking. Sieon rolled over her back, biotics flaring, and sent a wave of biotic energy at them. As his feet hit the floor, he pulled Rana over his shoulder just as she had done him and Rana sent a Bolt into that wave. The two met with a boom that sent ten of the Humans flying back with tremendous force and others still stumbling.

The others reacted as they were expected to and started fighting. Even with the numerical advantage and outflanking the Furlings by surrounding them, the Humans weren't making much ground. Then another trio of Furlings dropped on them from the ceiling landing amidst their ranks. More still moved in from the sides, always in groups of two or three. Each group moved with the fluidity and grace of dancers. Given their hive-minded nature, it wasn't even that surprising. It was, however, the point of this lesson.

The Humans did as the Furlings and broke into smaller groups. They used biotics and other forms of combat they knew to fight a superior foe, and used their steadily growing mental network to create a Collective of their own. Only when they started moving in tune with one another did they start to successfully hold back the Furlings. Only when they started striking as one did they begin to do harm to their enemy.

All of this taught the members of the Zeta Initiative one very important lesson:

Learning biotics from Furlings older than the Human race itself is a form of cruel and unusual torture into and of itself!

---

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

**Earth (Orbit)**

*USS Paciscor of Nex (Combat Information Center)*

"Attention!" the guard at the door called out to the room at large.

"At ease," recently promoted Brigadier-General Samantha Carter dismissed as she walked into the nerve center of what was, now in an official capacity, her new command. That was another thing that was still eating at her. She had her own command. The people on this ship, monstrous as it was, were officially under her care. She was responsible for them. She was a General.

Promoting a member of the American Armed Forces to a suitable rank to command the largest ship in Earth's small fleet had caused several ripples in the political spectrum, but when it became clear to the nations opposed to the appointment of an American CO that only someone with Furling DNA could operate the systems, they backed off, but not down. As such, the Nex was the second truly multinational military vessel, and the first nearly-global military vessel. There were members from every IOA nation present, though over half of the crew were still being trained in how to perform their duties. It was considered a victory for Earth as whole, but just gave Sam a headache. Having to train the crew while they're on the ship? Whoever heard of such an idiotic idea?!

Sam sat in the Control Chair and the straight backed, rigid material immediately softened as it adjusted to her body. It curved with her spine and allowed her to relax into a position that was perfectly tailored to suit her body specifically. As she did, the neural interface activated and a voice entered her ears, unfiltered and pure.

"Pilot is engaged in neural bridge," Widget said as Sam opened her virtual eyes and found herself standing on a beach. The sand between her toes was so perfectly simulated she would've thought she had been beamed to Hawaii if the AI wasn't standing beside her 'in the flesh.'

"Why do you always say that?" Sam asked him as Widget just stood there staring out over the crashing waves he was standing ankle deep in.

"To let you know you're in the computer," Widget replied, a distant tone to his words and his eyes not meeting hers.

"Something wrong?"

Widget sighed in reply, his chest heaving in the exact way Sam would expect an organic's body to move. "You could say I'm 'homesick,' but I haven't left my 'home' so it's hard to explain."

"Try me."

Widget finally turned to look at her, his bright green eyes… brown? "Furlings… organic Furlings," Widget corrected himself, "show emotion in their eyes. It's like a mood ring, but it's the iris that changes colors. Has something to do with the firing of certain neurons affecting the pigmentation genes or something like that. Krosis almost had it figured out before the Demons wiped us out."

"You're not all gone," Sam said reassuringly, a hand on his shoulder.

"True," Widget replied, a wan smile on his lips as he stepped out of the water and sat on a rock. "Rana pulled off a miracle with that one. Three-hundred living Furlings," he shook his head. "It's still not enough. The young ones won't be old enough to procreate for another thousand years or so, and…"

"A thousand years?!" Sam exclaimed.

"Furlings stay children for quite a while," Widget replied with a dismissive wave of his three-fingered hand. "A culture so defined by the ability to read another's mind is… hard to explain," Widget said, a note of frustration to his usually bright tones. "You see the way your mother and father see you and something in the structure of social engineering tells you to stay that innocent being, but then your hormones kick in and all bets are off. The only difference between a Furling teenager and a Human teenager is that a Furling girl knows when a boy is lying to her to get laid. When Furlings mate, they mate for life and they live for… a very long time. Konahrik was nearly a billion years old when he died. He was the first Furling, and, according to legend, the 'son' of an ascended being, but still… millions of years of experience couldn't save the best of us from That Which Hides in Darkness."

"It saved some of them," Sam reminded him again.

"It didn't save me," Widget said sadly and the bright, happy world he had created collapsed. The sandy beaches turned to glass, the bright blue sky turned the color of blood and shadows, and the crystal clear waters darkened with what had to be the blood of uncountable trillions.

"That's what's bothering you? You miss being organic?" Sam asked, her tone one of indignant shock. "You have access to more knowledge than I ever will! You'll outlive everyone with a heartbeat. You're literally the smartest person in the universe, and you miss having a body that bleeds?!"

"HE LEFT ME BEHIND!" Widget shouted at the skies, his voice causing the world around them to shudder in fear.

He created this world and he could destroy it. Somehow the computers knew that. It would take the return of a certain man before she would be told that the Nex had several VIs installed to monitor the less complex systems that Widget couldn't monitor one-hundred percent of the time because he dealt with the more complex systems, yet needed constant monitoring. It was those lesser programs that shuddered in fear.

"Who? Sieon? He went to get your people back," Sam said, her tones motherly despite the fact that she didn't have any children and the AI before her was infinitely older than her. "The Furlings have promised aid to the Impolans in return for the aid they, themselves, need digging the Isai out of their asteroid. From what I understand the 'bunker' that the Impolans had been studying was actually a Furling Destroyer. It's being repaired by the Impolans in return for help building a ship to replace the one they lost defending Earth."

"That's not what I mean," Widget replied, turning to meet her gaze again. "He left me behind, Sam. As fire rained down from the skies around me, his cowardice led him to flee. I was still on the ground, and he left me behind!"

Sam stared at the Furling before her, and it finally made sense. "You were made from a scan of Sieon's mind, not Widget's," Sam said with a nod. "You're reliving Sieon's regret over something that happened millions of years ago. So the root of your problem isn't that Sieon left, it's that he left then recreated you as if that would fix his mistake."

"He wrote me off as dead before I even died," Widget replied as he angrily stood to pace around in the glass that turned back to sand under his feet. The skies and oceans, however, did not revert back.

"Let me ask you something," Sam said as she sat on the rock he had vacated. "Is there any chance that you're still alive?"

"If there's one thing I was able to determine about the Demons, it's their methodology. They hide in the darkness, watching, waiting, and then, when a civilization reaches the point that suites them the best, they strike. We found the remains of a species that had explored the galaxy before us, and we found that the Demons were avoiding the lesser developed species as they wiped us out. When those lesser developed species, the ones even we avoided because they offered us nothing, when they reached into the stars and found the remnants of the Furling Galactic Empire they would expand to our level of technology then the Demons would return and the Cycle would continue. Life would re-evolve on the worlds we once inhabited and when they reached into the stars on the ashes of those who came before them, they, too, would be struck down."

"Why?" Sam asked. Even the Goa'uld weren't that cruel. Then again, the Wraith were. "Do they feed on organic life like the Wraith?"

"They're machines, Sam," Widget replied with a roll of his eyes and the humor caused the sky to brighten ever so slightly. "They 'feed' just as much as I do. All I need to live is energy coursing through my servers. As long as I have that, I'm immortal. The answer to the question of 'why' isn't one any Furling, alive or dead, could give you. We didn't have the chance to research them before our lead scientists were wiped out. For all she's a brilliant woman, Rana's knowledge pales in comparison to Konahrik's Accoutrements."

"What?" Sam asked, confusion clear on her face.

"Konahrik's Chosen Ten, often referred to as Konahrik's Circle. It was a sort of secret society that wasn't really a secret… an elitist society would be a better comparison," Widget corrected himself as a stream of binary shot across the skies, a clear sign that the AI was surfing the internet. "In blatant terms, they were the best in their fields and the personal students of the oldest living organic being in recorded history. Konahrik was practically a God-made-flesh to the Furlings. He knew everything because he was the Father."

"What do you mean?"

"The first Furling, the Father to our race. Konahrik's every word was law despite his constant urging that we stop coming to him for aid every time something minor went wrong." Widget stopped long enough to let a chuckle escape his gloom. "He once said, 'The sun setting at night is not a great enough concern for me to help you so stop asking.' It was a sort-of-joke because people were asking him about every little thing, but still… He was the Grand Adviser to the Furling High Council and he was the only person to ever hold that title. He refused to be the High Councilor because he wanted us to grow on our own, but he was always there to guide us. He taught me… Widget how to use his biotics and took others under his wing for the same purposes. He was the great teacher, wisest of us all, and he had a following.

"Those who most closely had his ear were the leading expert in every field. There was Morokei, my… his," Widget corrected himself once more, forcefully saying the word and causing the skies to darken all the more in response to his change of mood, "mate. She was the one who created the FSRs and developed the theory of light matter being energy as a state of matter. She had the greatest mind when it came to power production. She could make a generator out of a paperclip and a piece of string," Widget said with a small chuckle, the sky brightening in response to his laughter, but only a little.

This was going to be a long day, Sam could already tell that much.

"Then there was Hevnoraak, the Mistress of the Oldest Form. In Furling society, there's something called… well, it's actually our version of your 'military engineering.' It's loosely defined as the art and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and communications. It's also regarded as the oldest form of engineering which is why her 'surname' was Mistress of the Oldest Form. She created the weapons, armor, vehicles, and tanks Furlings used in battle. Widget was actually considered the greatest structural engineer of his age. He designed a space station the size of a nation that could hold the population of a planet," Widget shook his head sadly and turned back to Sam. "I miss being Furling."

"You never stopped being a Furling," Sam countered.

"Look at me, Sam," Widget said, arms spread wide as the world dissolved around them and Sam looked upon the AI with organic eyes. "You can see right through me," he said, waving his hand through a terminal causing his avatar to shimmer to punctuate his point.

"Just ignore him," Sam ordered to the people around them that looked on in confusion. Sam leaned back into her chair again and closed her eyes. The beach reappeared around her, but this time she was standing with her arms crossed over her chest, a look of annoyance on her face.

"I miss being alive, Sam! You've never died so you wouldn't understand. Doctor Jackson might, but even he's never been through what I have," Widget gripped in a huff.

"You're being childish," Sam said sternly. "The Asgard had the most advanced cloning technology in three galaxies. The Lanteans had nannite bodies that were nearly indestructible. Hell, the Cylons have organic bodies that, apparently, are capable of reproducing with Humans! You've had access to all of that for months! If you wanted to have a physical body you should've made yourself one. You want to be organic again? Grow a pair!" Sam shouted at the AI.

Without another word, Sam severed her link to the ship's computers and returned to her body. She sat up out of her chair and looked at the holograms that surrounded the CIC to give them a view of space. "What's the status of the upgrades?" Sam asked.

"Roughly fifteen percent done which isn't bad for a month's worth of work," Colonel Kimberly Aguirre, Sam's Canadian navigational officer and defacto Executive Officer, replied.

Yes, between the upgrades to the slips, the creation of the Achilles-class, the production of fighters, and the repairs to Atlantis, the Nex had gone unrepaired for six months. Considering that, as Sieon had told them, they needed high-gravity pressure forges to compress the layers of armor together to replace the missing hull pieces, it was understandable. They had to get a shipment of materials from New Caprica, refine it, send it to the Impolans, then wait for the Impolans to send the hyper-compressed hull plating back through. As such, the Nex's repairs were only now coming to a close and the upgrades were just beginning.

"At this rate, we'll be done with the upgrades in… just under seven months of nonstop construction," Kimberly finished her report.

Sam sighed halfway between relieved and not happy. Seven months of work, with one month down and six months to go, would take the Nex from a ten-kilometer behemoth of a ship to a fifty-kilometer caricature of a warship. Sure the ship was supposed to be a Super Dreadnought, but fifty-kilometers of war potential? The ship would be nearly impossible to move through hyperspace and Sam had run the numbers. It would take five of the Nex's FTL drives to create a wormhole large enough to move a ship that massive instantaneously and if the drives didn't fire at exactly the same time, the ship would be torn apart by the formation of five separate wormholes moving the ship in five sections instead of as one whole.

Then there was hyperspace. It would take fifteen City Ship-grade stardrives to move that much ship through hyperspace on an interplanetary level. To get it to go intergalactic? They'd need nearly thirty stardrives drives, each measuring a full two-hundred meters long, all tied together. The upside was that if one failed to fire properly, they lost FTL speed instead of dying. The downside was the speed and power requirements. The Nex, originally, ran off of four of the FSRs. To get the remodeled ship powered to operational levels, they would have to pull the FSRs from the PDS and install them on the ship. It would take twenty of the protostars to give the ship the power it needed and that meant, even taking the twelve that were orbiting Earth and the four they had on the ship, they still didn't have enough.

If only they had the ZPM designs. Then they could install two FSRs for every kilometer of ship, instead of four, and use the ZPMs to make up the difference. Even then, the Nex would be a bitch to power. For now, the plan was just to get the ship upgraded. They'd keep it confined to orbit as Earth's greatest defensive weapons platform. Sam sighed at the thought of being constrained and stuck in orbit. With the fleet expanding like it was, there wouldn't be many threats that could make it to Earth. This time next year, they'd be expanding Earth's territory and colonizing worlds, their enemies vanquished in the fires of combat.

Then Sam had an idea. "Widget…"

"Ma'am?" the AI asked, his tone oddly professional considering the turmoil in his mind.

"What all has happened to the Nex since we began the upgrades?"

"So far all we've managed to do was repair the damage done during the Battle for Earth. This time tomorrow I'll begin stripping off the engines, armor, hull plating, weapons, and everything else not needed so I can begin extending the superstructure in preparation for the addition of the new sections."

"In its upgraded state, will the Nex's eezo core be able to effect its mass enough to make movement possible in anything but a unilateral direction?"

A pause while the answer was calculated, then, "No."

"Do we have enough eezo to make the core large enough to achieve any but unilateral movement?"

Another pause. "No."

"So we're effectively creating a gravity-driven, orbital weapons platform that will sit in orbit and do nothing more?"

A far shorter pause. "Yes."

"Stop the upgrades," Sam ordered.

"Ma'am?" Kimberly asked.

"Finish restoring the ship to fully operational status then stop the upgrades. I want the anti-proton thrusters and everything else reinstalled unless the ion propulsion engines are better in which case switch out the anti-proton thrusters. Get the ship working in optimal condition without the upgrade package. General O'Neill made that thinking we'd need an orbital shipyard/Homeworld Command/Stargate Command/super-command-center, but he's wrong. We have the City Factory which can produce City Ships, Auroras, and even the O'Neills if we modify it. We have conversion slips being built across the planet for the Heavy Cruisers and the fighters are being produced without any issue using Earth's preexisting industry as well. There's no point to a superstructure capable of replacing Earth's industry when Earth's industry is perfectly capable of doing what's needed. This is my command and I have a better idea for its function and purpose."

"Feel like filling us in?" Widget asked, a smile back on his holographic face. At least he wasn't as depressed now as he was earlier.

A depressed AI. 'Yup, still weird,' Sam thought to herself before launching into her explanation.

"Go ahead with the weapons upgrade package," Sam began. "Getting beam cannons and upgraded ion cannons will help a lot. Install two Grodins along the ship's primary axis with two SCICs so that the dark matter energy beam is in the center of the nose. Then we'll get the power systems reinforced with a few Mark II Neutrino Ion Generators and we'll see if we can get a fighter bay built into one of the Frigate bays already present…" Sam continued as she started altering a holographic image of the ship.

*USS Paciscor of Nex (Combat Information Center) [two weeks later]*

"Attention!" the guard at the door called out to the room at large.

"At ease," Sam immediately said. This had already become normal for her which was a good thing… she hoped. Sam sat in her chair, leaned back, and brought up a holographic image of the ship for her to look over as it was pieced back together.

She was distracted by a familiar voice doing a very unfamiliar thing. Widget, who was depressed the last time she had a meaningful conversation with him, was singing as he walked through the doors to the CIC. She'd never heard him sing before… or seen him use a door, for that matter.

Judging by the clarity and pureness to his voice, Sam assumed she was in the computers. Under that assumption, she wrote off the AI's use of the door as him going through a firewall or something. Still, the headphones he was wearing and the fact he was singing was… strange.

"Tuesday night, crowded bar. Some guy lights a cheap cigar. Bartender yells at him, so he walks out and you walk in. Right through that cloud of smoke, catcalls, and dirty jokes. Scan the room a couple times. Find a seat right next to mine. Lonely eyes. Well it sure looks like you just might be looking for something. For something. Whoa. Look at me and I think you'll see those lonely eyes don't have to be alone tonight."

"Widget," Sam tried to get his attention, but the AI apparently couldn't hear her.

"They analyze your glass of wine, roll away a pickup line, now and then they check your phone, catch mine and let 'em go. From the little bit I've seen, they're the perfect shade of green. Next time they come my way, Heaven help me, make 'em stay. Lonely eyes. Well it sure looks like you just might be looking for something. For something. Whoa. Look at me and I think you'll see those lonely eyes don't have to be alone tonight."

"Widget!" Sam said again, but louder.

"Don't make me pay my tab, catch a cab, go home and kick myself to sleep tonight. Give me a sign. Just a smile. Baby, I'll be glad to lose myself deep inside those lonely eyes. Lonely eyes, sure looks like you just might be looking for something. For something. Whoa. Look at me and I think you'll see those lonely eyes they don't have to be alone tonight. Lonely eyes, you don't have to be alone tonight."

"WIDGET!" Sam shouted as she got out of the Control Chair and pulled the headphones from his ears.

"I was listening to that!" the AI complained as he turned to face her, an annoyed look on his face.

"We're supposed to be working on the new superstructure," Sam replied as she tried, and failed, to bring up an image of the aforementioned project by sending a mental command through the ship's computers. She tried again to the same effect then turned back to the AI. "Bring up the file."

"Okay, straight to business," Widget said as he walked over to one of the terminals lining the walls and brought up the requested hologram. "What are we focusing on today?" he asked as he sat in the chair before the terminal.

"Why didn't you just materialize it?" Sam asked in a confused tone. Widget never tried this hard to make analogies for what he was doing.

"Oh, you know…" Widget replied, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away as if ashamed. "I haven't really figured out how to do that yet."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

Before Widget could reply, the door to the CIC opened again and Kimberly walked in looking like she hadn't slept at all last night. "Good morning, ma'am," she said in greeting, a cup of coffee in one hand. She then turned to where Widget was still sitting at her terminal and blinked at him before simply sitting in his lap to access her station. She had only enough time to place her cup in the holder before she was on her feet shouting, "WHAT THE ACTUAL LIVING FUCK!?" at the top of her lungs.

"Calm down," Widget said with a placating gesture. "I can explain!"

"YOU MADE YOURSELF A BODY!" Sam exclaimed.

"You took the words right out of my mouth!" Widget replied excitedly with a big smile on his face. "This mouth," he said, pointing to his jaw. "Right here. It's real!"

And with that, Sam took one step forward, drew her arm back, and slammed her fist into the AI's jaw. It hurt! Punching the bastard hurt! His jaw was physical! And her hand HURT!

"OW!" Widget's voice groaned, this time from the speakers as his avatar shimmered into existence a few feet away. "What the in the name of Sithis was that for!?" he asked as his organic body twitched on the floor where Sam had cold-cocked him.

"You built a body!" Sam replied, pointing to the unconscious form in her CIC, the guards rushing into the room, weapons raised, looking for a target.

"I grew one, actually, and you told me to!" Widget countered, his avatar fading out as the organic… 'him' regained cognitive function.

"I did no such thing!" Sam shouted back.

With a groan of pain, Widget sat up from his place on the floor and glared at Sam. "You said, and I quote…" Widget countered while pointing to one side where a hologram of Sam promptly appeared.

"You're being childish," the recording of Sam said sternly. "The Asgard had the most advanced cloning technology in three galaxies. The Lanteans had nannite bodies that were nearly indestructible. Hell, the Cylons have organic bodies that, apparently, are capable of reproducing with Humans! You've had access to all of that for months! If you wanted to have a physical body you should've made yourself one. You want to be organic again? Grow a pair!"

"So I grew a pair!" Widget continued as the hologram faded. "A pair of arms, a pair legs, a pair of hearts, a pair of lungs, a pair of…" the AI said, trailing off with a glance aimed directly down between his legs.

"Get me a line to the SGC," Sam ordered while rubbing her sore fingers and Kimberly looked at the man lying on the ground with his feet still propped up in her chair.

"Right…" she said before pushing his legs out of her way like they were contaminated with a deadly disease and opening the channel.

When the line connected, Sam said, "Sir, I'm going to need you to send a message to Sieon telling him there's a problem with Widget."

"How bad is it?" Landry asked.

"Just have him bring you up, and get Jack too. This isn't going to be pretty," Sam replied before cutting the channel and turning back to the AI.

"Why is this a problem?" Widget asked in a pleading tone as he stood up.

"Just…" Sam began before throwing her hands up in frustration. "It just is!"

"That's not a good enough reason and we both know it!" Widget argued.

Thankfully it didn't take long for the three requested figures to appear with Rana in tow as well. When they did, Widget was standing next to the Control Chair Sam was sitting in trying to talk her into not having them come up. When they appeared, he instantly stopped talking. Apparently Sam wasn't the only one could tell the differences in his vocal tones when he was here versus when he was talking through the speakers.

"What's the problem?" Sieon asked.

"Well…" Sam began, looking at Widget who simply stared back without blinking. "Let me put it this way," Sam said before standing up and stomping down on Widget's toe as hard as she could.

With a pained look on his face and in his tones, Widget whizzed, "Why do you keep hurting me!?" while hopping on one foot to which Sieon slammed a palm into his forehead and the other two Generals balked. "I haven't had a body in a couple million years, Samantha! My pain threshold is not as impressive as it used to be!"

"What have you done?" Rana asked, her question directed at Sam.

"Me?" Sam countered. "Don't you mean him?!"

"He couldn't have done this without your permission," Sieon explained.

"He took it out of context!" Sam argued.

"Out of context?!" Widget asked indignantly as he stepped away from the woman who kept causing him bodily pain. As he did, the recording of Sam telling him to 'grow a pair' played again and Sieon shook his head. "See, even he agrees that this is your doing, not mine."

"No, this is still your doing," Sieon countered. "Your body, how does it work?" Sieon asked.

"It's a combination of things," Widget replied. "Mostly Cylon tech though. I installed a transmitter at the base of my skull linked to the Nex so I can control the body and jump my mind out of it in the event it's lost. My own, personal Resurrection," Widget said with a beaming smile.

"Mostly Cylon?" Sieon pressed.

"I used Asgard-enhanced Furling cloning tech to grow it faster without an increased ageing rate," Widget said with a shrug of his massive shoulders. "Furling nannites pieced its skeletal structure together, and the organs I had to grow in a lab using medical records of the original with Asgard tech, so all of my organs are lab-grown medical replicas not something stolen from a hospital if that's what you're thinking. Bones turned out a bit more metallic than I would've liked, but certain sacrifices had to be made. In short, it's as close to my original body as I could get it."

"You never had 'an original body'," Sieon pointed out with a shake of his head.

"Yeah, well…" Widget replied. "You're the one who made me believe I did! You're the reason I think I'm someone I'm not!"

"And now you're something you're not," Sieon shot back, though there was no anger in his words. Just annoyance.

"I'm half organic," Widget countered, arms crossed over his massive chest. Was Sam going to get into the habit of describing everything on the AI's body as massive? "It's your fault I took this form instead of duplicating you."

"He can do that?" Jack asked, instantly alarmed.

"No," Rana replied with a shake of her head. "He took the form he did because it is the same form as his avatar, and that is based off of his personality matrix. He thinks he is Widget, so he took the form of the one he believes himself to be. You would have to reprogram him to believe him to be you before he could take on your form, General."

"It's just a body," Widget argued. "It's not like I cloned an army to use to conquer the galaxy!"

"Does this mean he can run the ship on his own?" Landry asked, speaking for the first time. When Sieon turned to him, he added, "You once said that you needed Furling DNA to operate the primary systems. He has that now. What's the threat?"

"Nonexistent," Sieon replied smoothly. "He has the DNA, but the ship still reads him as the AI. His DNA, no matter how authentic, is still restricted from accessing those systems by his own mind. There are some things he will never be able to change about himself, and the parts of him that prevent his controlling the ship in full have every failsafe imaginable in place, including one for this eventuality. Granted, when Rana and I programmed that failsafe we were worried about an AI hacking a Furling's brain and hijacking their body, but the effect on the computers is the same. He could steal the Isai, yes, but the Nex remains beyond his ability to control without an organic crew."

"How much of that body… works?" Jack asked out of curiosity.

"All of it?" Widget replied with a raised eyebrow to question the question.

"So…" Jack trailed off pointing down. "All of it?"

"If I grew everything properly, then yes," Widget replied casually. "I did as Sam suggested and 'grew a pair.' A pair of eyes, a pair of nostrils, a pair of arms, a pair legs, a pair of hearts, a pair of lungs, a trio of stomachs, a brain…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa," Jack interrupted him, turning to Sieon. "Furlings have two hearts?"

"Of course," Rana replied with a confused look. "Do not Humans as well?"

"No… we only have one," Kimberly replied in a 'you're the weird ones, not us' tone.

"No wonder you're capable of dying of 'broken heart'," Rana said with an 'ah ha!' expression.

"You have three stomachs?" Sam asked Widget.

"We all do," Sieon replied. "It's part of what makes it to where we can live for so long. We have a lot of energy in our bodies and we're capable of producing three times the energy a Human is and three times as quickly to boot. We eat three times as much though."

"We're getting off topic," Landry pointed out.

"I wonder," Sieon mused before working the controls on the terminal behind him. When a display appeared that projected the amount of materials present on the ship, he frowned. "You took eezo from the drive core," Sieon observed.

"I did say it's as close to my original body as I could make it," Widget pointed out as his body was surrounded in the glow of a biotic aura.

"That was… unnecessary," Rana pointed out.

"I missed being me," Widget replied with a shrug. "To fix that, I recreated the original as closely as I could."

"That's understandable," Sieon agreed with a nod. "He is no more a threat to you now than he was before," Sieon assured Landry.

"And I have what? Your word on that?" Landry asked.

"Samantha, tell him to do something," Rana prompted.

"Uh…" Sam said uncertainty. "Sit?" she finally ordered and Widget obliged immediately, albeit with a death glare of annoyance directed at all present.

"You could order him to jump out of an airlock and he would be forced to do so without question or hesitation. We programmed the AIs for every eventuality, even the ones we never thought would arise," Sieon said, eyeing the AI-made-flesh skeptically. "It appears our paranoia was well founded in fact."

"Paranoia, by definition, is entirely in your head," Widget countered in a self-aggrandizing way, arms crossed over his chest as he sat on the floor waiting for someone to say he could get up.

"This is a problem that is not truly a problem," Rana said. "Once you are no longer comfortable with his presence, simply order him to kill himself in whatever fashion you so choose and your problem disappears. However, you may find that it's worth having him around."

"How so?" Landry asked.

"He's a Furling," Sieon replied verbally before switching means of communicating. 'In every sense of the word, am I correct?'

'You are,' Widget replied in kind.

"Great," Jack mumbled. "Another immortal, telepathic alien with space-powers."

"So I can keep it?" Widget asked, his eyes full of the same hope a child has when they bring home a stray dog.

"For now," Sam replied, and, like a puppy given a home, the AI smiled a huge grin.

'This is going to take a lot to get used to,' Sam thought to herself with a shake of her head. "What's the range on this body of yours?" she asked.

"Whatever distance the Nex's FTLC has," Widget replied.

"Keep it on a leash," Landry ordered gruffly.

"I'll try," Sam replied in an annoyed tone as the others left.

"I told you involving them wasn't necessary," Widget said in a tone full of pride.

"Stop talking," Sam ordered and Widget glared at her in annoyance as he was forced to comply.

'This was nowhere near as fun as I thought it'd be,' Widget thought to himself.

Eight Months Post-Disclosure:

---

When Widget shimmered into existence in the CIC, Sam looked up from her work with an eyebrow raised in question. "As you so often do, I forgot that organic bodies have to sleep. As such, my body's in bed right now," Widget replied with a shrug of his holographic shoulders.

"You, who keeps stunning me for being up past my bedtime, forgot to sleep?" Sam asked in a tone of shock and mirth.

"I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?" Widget asked rhetorically.

"Nope," Sam replied with a shit-eating grin.

"What's on the agenda for today?" he asked in a more serious tone.

"Same as every day," Sam replied before returning to her work.

"And what's the news from Earth?"

"They've finally started agreeing on stuff," Kimberly replied as she turned to face the AI.

"Like what?"

"The IOA has officially been replaced by the UEG, or United Earth Governments, and Homeworld Command has been renamed the UNSC, or United Nations Space Command. Those names were chosen by the people operating within them, but the civilians have also agreed on something. The Global Anthem of the United Earth Governments has officially been chosen."

"Really?" Sam asked. "What song did they pick?"

"Dirt by Florida Georgia Line," Kimberly replied.

"I love that song!" Widget exclaimed.

"It sounds familiar…" Sam mused.

"Widget was singing it two days ago. Nonstop. All day. I shot him in the back to shut him up," Kimberly explained in far too casual a tone for having just admitted to shooting someone to make them stop singing.

Sam looked to the AI who shrugged in reply. "You know it's a good song when even the aliens think it's both catchy and meaningful. All about that dirt you grew up on, the dirt you call your own, because what is Earth if not a giant ball of dirt?!"

"A giant ball of water," Sam answered the rhetorical question.

"Or a giant ball of gas," Kimberly added.

"Good point," Sam agreed with a nod and a baiting smile.

"I hate you both so much right now," Widget said irritably before disappearing.

---

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

**Earth (Surface)**

*United Nations Space Command Headquarters (Command and Control Center)*

"I can't believe it's finally done," Jack said as he looked out of the window to where the form of Earth's newest warship sat glistening under the Artic sun.

"The first refit Aurora," Sam said in a tone of admiration from beside him. "Are we keeping it as the Aurora-class or will it be the Gaia-class?" she asked as the duo looked down on the sleek form of the Gaia in her fully repaired and heavily upgraded state.

"A tribute to the Ancients, or a new class for the Tau'ri?" Jack mused.

"A tribute to the Ancients," both he and she said at the same time.

"How are things in orbit?" Jack asked with a small chuckle.

"Better now that my ship isn't being turned into a technological impossibility," Sam replied with a roll of her eyes. "That, and I find Widget's constant screw ups to be entertaining."

"How so?"

"He keeps forgetting things like sleep and food, and his depth perception is crap. He keeps stubbing his toes on stuff. A fifty-million year old alien that has no sense of depth. It's worthy of being on America's Funnies Home-Videos."

"When do we get to see the tapes?" Jack asked with a smile.

"Widget keeps deleting them," Sam replied with an amused shake of her head. "Have we decided on a flagship?"

"I would say the Nex because she's…"

"Widget's not a girl," Sam interrupted. "The Nex is a 'he' not a 'she'."

"Does that mean that the other ships have to be 'he' now too? Cause that's just annoying as hell and confusing to boot."

Sam thought about that for a second then shook her head. "As you were saying, sir."

"I would say the Nex because she's a one-of-a-kind ship, but that would make you the fleet leader."

"Not a title I look forward to having."

"I thought not, but you do have to stay in command of the ship until we can develop a gene therapy for the FTA gene since Sieon won't give us anymore of what he made."

"I'm sure he has his reasons."

"I suppose," Jack mused. "Instead, we're going to build our own. I had the egg-heads at Area 51 draw up a design based on the O'Neill-class. An enlarged variant armed to the teeth and modified to fit yours truly," Jack added with a devilish smile.

"I hope I never have to get into a fight with something that you had a hand in designing," Sam answered with a look of honest horror on her face.

"I wonder what the Tok'ra are up to these days," Jack pondered.

"From what I understand, they're living in Colorado and serving as a scouting and sabotage force for the SGC, but I haven't had the time to speak to Landry in… four weeks," Sam replied sadly. "I actually miss going off-world."

"I did too when they promoted me. Almost quit."

Below them, the Gaia fired her engines and began to lift off of the slip that it had been upgraded in. This one, unlike the slips popping up all around the globe, was open to the elements which were held back by the shadow-casting monster above them, but that wasn't up for discussion yet.

Because of the importance of the site, the availability of it, how readily available to receive them it was, and the fact that it was in neutral territory, the whole of the newly dubbed United Nations Space Command had been moved into the Ancient City Factory. The multinational command center for the rapidly expanding global fleet had been modified and set up in a matter of two months and now rested in the largest of the buildings that had popped up out of the ice when Atlantis returned home. The geothermal plant that powered the site was also given a microwave emitter and was adding its power to the PDS. The remaining three geothermal plants needed to complete the sextuplet of generators were being constructed and were scheduled to be finished by the end of the year that was rapidly coming to a close.

"I can't believe it's been eight months since the world almost ended," Jack said, his tone reflective.

"I can't believe Disclosure wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back," Sam added in a similar tone.

"I can't believe Earth is finally uniting," Daniel said as he walked up behind them. "Have you heard the news? All but ten countries have officially joined the UEG, and the ones that haven't joined are the small countries that don't hold much weight behind their complaints. We're roughly three months away from a fully united planet."

"United by treaty, yes, but we're a long way away from being united as a people," Jack countered with a sigh.

"Even then, it only took eight months to get this far. The Daedalus and Atlantis have been back in Pegasus for three months and things have been pretty quiet. I think the Wraith are taking the threat the Daedalus poses seriously. Last thing I heard from Weir, the Wraith had returned to Lantea looking for the city in force. All they found was a planet covered in oceans," Daniel said with a smile.

"How are things going with your own side-project?" Sam asked.

"The Asgard Memorial Museum is officially open to the public. What about you?"

"The Nex's upgrades are nearly finished."

"I thought that thing would be visible from the surface by now."

"No, Sam decided to pull rank and changed the designs," Jack said with a small smile lighting up his face. "We're not getting a monster of a 'ship' in orbit that can only sit there. Instead, we're getting an upgraded version of what was already present. We are, however, drawing up plans for a new structure to replace the fact that the Nex won't be the all-inclusive superstructure we wanted it to be. We're just having a bit of trouble deciding on how to do it."

"A pure and simple space station would be the best way of getting it done. Something big and powerful loaded up with everything you want without the delusional hope of it being a mobile base of operations. That's what the City Ships are for," Sam interjected.

"And no small number of Neutrino Ion Generators to power it," Daniel added.

"Actually, we finally tracked down the ZPM designs," Sam said with a smirk on her face.

"Really? Where were they?" Daniel asked in a surprised tone to which Jack groaned in dismay.

"About fourteen stories directly below the Mess Hall," Sam replied with a shit-eating grin on her face.

"They were here?!" Daniel almost shouted.

"The Ancients took them from Atlantis to the place where Atlantis was built. We finally got around to uploading Pac into the computers for the UNSC HQ, and, when we did, he found the designs in about half an hour of sorting out the database that's present here," Sam explained.

"So, you're telling me that the designs for the ZPMs…" Daniel began.

"Have been on Earth for the past ten-thousand years, yes," Jack finished with a shake of his head. "You have no idea how stupid I felt after they told me that."

"It was only an hour ago so he's still a little down about it," Sam added, her smile still broad.

"So giving the Gaia the Cursor's ZPM to replace the one they lost during the battle wasn't even necessary?" Daniel asked.

"I wouldn't say that," Jack replied as he turned to look out the window where the ship in question was still hovering in place going over a series of pre-space flight checks. You don't want a ship with a leaky hull flying into space, after all. "Even with the technology we have available to us, it'll take a week to produce each ZPM."

"A week for one?" Daniel stressed.

"Each batch of ZPMs," Sam corrected. "The production facilities here, apparently, were one of the Ancients' most extensive. They used this site to make the ZPMs, the City Ships, the Auroras, and the drones. We now have access to everything we need to make anything and everything the Ancients have ever created."

"I can see that," Daniel said as he looked up past where the Gaia was preparing to make for orbit.

Directly above their heads blocking out the bulk of the limited sunlight at the planet's pole this time of year and doing a lot to stop the powerful winds that prevailed here, the large, snowflake shape of a City Ship's base was rapidly taking shape in sustained waves of light. Two months after Atlantis left and a swarm of Ancient construction drones upgraded with Asgard energy-to-matter matter converters being fed power by the geothermal plant beneath them had already completed the base of a City Ship. This one, however, wouldn't be a copy of Atlantis. Instead, the outer piers would be modified, and, in place of the towers, there would be mining and refining equipment. Earth's first city-sized mobile mining platform would be fully operational and sent to New Caprica to speed up the process of gathering their much needed Trinium and Naquadah in a matter of months. In fact, they predicted the successful launch of the ship by the end of next month.

"What are we calling her?" Daniel asked.

"No clue," Jack replied.

"We haven't really thought that far ahead yet. We're more concerned with mining the resources of New Caprica than we are with naming the ship we're sending to get it done," Sam added.

"Guys, this is the first City Ship to be built by Earth!" Daniel exclaimed. "This thing deserves the fanfare of the masses as it launches. We can't just let his momentous occasion slip by without a televised launch. We're building a flying city!" Daniel stressed again when Sam and Jack looked unimpressed by his idea. "That warrants celebration!"

Nine Months Post-Disclosure:

---

***Milky Way Galaxy (Local Spur Arm)***

**P4X-650 (Orbit)**

*Alpha Site (Research and Development Labs)*

"You've been working on the designs for nine months!" Taylor stressed.

"And they're extremely complex," Felger calmly replied. "Look, it's not as simple as duplicating Ptah's original weapons. These things were designed to be used by Jaffa, and they're stronger than Humans are because of what they are. We had to alter the designs to be conceivably used by Humans. In order to pull that off, we had to take out certain parts, and replace them with other parts. A long, techy explanation made short and understandable, we've got a working design that's past the prototype stage and into the development stage… it just has a drawback."

"How serious a drawback?" Taylor asked.

"Heat management," Felger replied. "The system Ptah was using was complicated, and it worked, but it was too bulky to fit into the new design. We had to make a work-around based off of the heat management systems of the weapons the Impolans gave us."

"So we'll have plasma weapons that overheat like our railguns?" Taylor asked. "That's not half-bad. At least they're used to watching their magazine capacity and heat-sinks already. From what I understand, a liquid Naquadah power core can last for decades."

"Yes, it can, but no…" Felger said as he held up the rifle that, remarkably enough, looked like just that; a standard assault rifle. "The liquid Naquadah core is located here," Felger said, pointing out the area that a spent shell would normally be ejected from. "Our answer to the problem of overheating is located here," he continued while pointing at the magazine slotted in the weapon. "Because our soldiers have been drilled for years on how to reload a gun with a clip, we just modified our solution to fit your preexisting battle reflexes. The magazine is actually what we're calling a 'thermal clip.' The heat generated within the casing that builds up during firing is channeled into his," Felger explained as he pulled a radiator-looking contraption out of the magazine slot. "Like an actual magazine, each one holds enough heat for roughly twenty-five to thirty shots to be fired before the thermal clip is 'spent.' Then, like a real magazine, you just clip it back to your belt and replace it with a fresh one. Once the thermal clip is done venting all that heat, a process that can be sped up by pouring water onto it, it's good to go again as if it had never been used."

"So reloading is effectively unchanged?" Taylor asked, more than a little impressed.

"By design," Felger assured him with a bright smile. "It's drilled into your head already, so why change it?"

"May I?" Taylor asked.

"Be my guest," Felger replied while handing off the plasma rifle and two thermal clips. "The sights are as close to the original iron sights of the old gunpowder weapons as we could get them given the nature of the weapon and the need for change that called for. Basically it's the same concept, but there's a built-in holographic aiming sight that'll help soldiers aim until they're used to the nature of plasma rounds. They don't drop like a regular bullet," Felger added when Taylor looked confused.

"Nice," Taylor said with a nod. "And the sights? Why not just use the existing systems in our armor?"

"Since the Naquadah core is already there, we didn't see the point in relying solely on your helmet's HUD. There's always the possibility that you'll lose it in battle, after all."

Sighting down the iron sights first and activating the holo-sights only once he was sure the iron sights were properly zeroed-in, Taylor squeezed the trigger and fired a burst of shots into the dummy target down range. He switched targets and fired again, amazed at the brilliance of the plasma rounds. When his thermal clip was full to capacity, a small holographic panel popped out of the holo-sights warning him to change clips. With a motion so fluid it was like reloading his old M-16, Taylor slotted the new magazine and fired at the last three targets.

"The plasma flashing in my eyes makes it hard to keep a steady bead. On a stationary target it's just a matter of holding the barrel still, but on a moving target it'll be a problem," Taylor said as he handed the scientist the weapon back.

Felger, to his credit, immediately opened his tac-pad and made a note of the flash being an issue. "Your helmet's visor will polarize automatically, and I've seen Carter's plans to put that same HUD into a pair of ballistic sunglasses so that won't be a problem with proper eye cover, but if you lose your helmet and your glasses you'd be screwed," Felger said with a nod. Then he looked up to where Taylor was just watching him and added, "I'll see if we can get the HUD on the rifle to polarize enough to reduce the flash to manageable levels. Other than that, these weapons are ready to go."

"What about shotguns?" Taylor asked.

"We've got those too," Felger replied with an evil grin. He reached into the weapons closet behind him and pulled out the weapon in question. He set it down then turned again to remove a pistol followed by a sniper rifle that was in two pieces. "We've got 'em all!" he reiterated. "Whatever your preference, whatever your specialization, you pick your poison and go. The only thing we haven't gotten working yet are the heavy weapon variants. They're still too heavy to carry even with strength enhancing servomotors in your armor."

"Felger," Taylor said with an approving nod. "I like the way you think!"

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

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

*Zeta Site (Shipyards)*

The Shadow of Opportunity gleamed in the lights of the shipyards. The sleek curves of the ship were nearly identical to those of the smaller ships of her class. As such, the Shadow of Opportunity was simply dubbed the SR-2. She was seven times longer than her sister ships, putting her two-dozen meter longer than the Daedalus-class, and served the same purpose as the Savage Annihilation before its destruction. She was a Carrier-sized vessel with more weapons and shields than the smaller ships combined. Unlike the Savage Annihilation, however, the Shadow of Opportunity was designed from the ground up with the Neutrino Ion Generators in the original design along with the coaxial ion cannon and her particle beams. All in all, she was a very lethal beauty made all the more deadly by the Furling engineers who had supped her up.

Standing before the ship, Oliver spoke to the assembled men and women of the Zeta Initiative. "Earth has made a mistake," Oliver said. "The Cylons were let loose on the galaxy at large, and that is on our heads. The Replicators proved the effectiveness of a robotic species to expand and adapt at disturbing rates. The Cylons cannot be allowed to reach the threat level the Replicators once posed. We have to stop them before they become too strong, but to do so, we have to learn their strengths and weaknesses. We'll need to scout their forces starting in the Cyrannus Sector and working our way along the route the Colonials took to reach New Caprica. We have to learn everything we can about them. The Cylons are a threat to everyone, and we're going to stop them before that threat becomes great enough to reach Earth, but we cannot leave the Lucian Alliance unchecked.

"Earth has taken a new interest in Ba'al which leaves him in the hands of those back home. It is up to us, once again, to fight a war in the shadows that assures the success of the wars Earth fights in the light. We'll keep the Lucian Alliance cowering on their worlds while launching raids against their infrastructure. At the same time, we'll split our forces and scout out the Cylon forces. As most of you know, this is a task that will have to take place entirely on the move. For those of you who don't know, this asteroid is not a naturally occurring celestial body.

"This entire asteroid in which we built our second home was constructed by the Furlings to hide the Isai, but the Isai is leaving. When its engines fire, this asteroid will crumble around it. We will evacuate the base beforehand, taking everything of value with us, and we will continue to perform the tasks assigned to us in our new home. The Shadow of Opportunity will become our new mobile bass of operations, and has been designed to perform that task with as much comfort as we could manage. The Furlings, in return for taking our home from us, have helped us make the Shadow of Opportunity a livable place. However, I know that many of you are getting homesick. I'm offering you this one chance to leave.

"We'll dial the Gate in one hour, and anyone wanting to go back to Earth will be allowed to do so after stopping off at the Beta Site for debriefing. We've all been away from home for nearly four years now. Many of us did this for the money. Others did it for the pride of service. Others still weren't really given a choice," Oliver continued, his words earning him a soft round of chuckles from the assembled men and women. They all knew who he was and what he used to be. "If you want to go home, none of us will hold it against you. General Landry has already developed your cover story. To the world at large, you're a member of an off-world mine returning home as either a guardsmen being cycled out for leave, or a miner leaving for the same reason. You'll all be welcomed back as heroes, but not for the deeds you've done. The choice is yours to make. I won't force anyone to stay that doesn't want to. At this point, I need only the people who are devoted to our reason for being out here. Without that devotion, our operation will fail. You're all needed and you're all wanted to stay, but you're all welcome to leave should you so choose."

"Would you stop repeating yourself like anyone's going to give in?" Tommy asked with a huff of annoyance. "We're all staying."

A chorus of affirmatives came from the crowd of civilian scientists, miners, technicians, engineers, and medical personnel, the soldiers giving their own affirmations.

"Then pack your bags," Oliver said. "We'll be leaving the Zeta Site behind us for good in two hours. Take everything you need and get it loaded into the ship. Deck One is the living quarters, Deck Two is the CIC, mobile labs, and FTLC station. Deck Three is where you'll find my 'office,' the infirmary, and the mess hall. And Decks Four and Five are the SR-1 bays. The mobile mining and refinery equipment is also on Deck Five. Feel free to look around. We've got the AI installed on the ship and she'll tell you anything you need to know. Quarters have already been assigned so just ask her where you're bunking down. Remember people, you get one standard footlocker for storage. Send the rest of it back home to your families. Let's get moving!"

As the two-hundred assembled members of the Zeta Initiative broke off to gather what they pleased, Gabi, Tommy, and Kimi all walked up to Oliver. "We're going to be living in a ship?" Tommy asked in an annoyed tone.

"I said you could go home, Tommy. You're the one who decided to say everyone was staying," Oliver replied.

"And how horrible is this going to be?" Kimi asked.

"No worse than the living quarters on the Odyssey. We're actually running with a smaller crew than the Odyssey did and the Shadow of Opportunity is slightly larger," Gabi explained.

"By how much?"

"Twenty-five meters," Gabi said with a smirk. "The biggest difference, aside from the obvious," Gabi continued as she looked back to the almost avian looking ship, "is that we installed all of the mining equipment in the ship as well. We can keep mining and refining on the move to conduct repairs since we don't have the luxury of having energy-to-matter converters to do all the work for us. Sieon's agreed to let us keep the Furling mining drones we've been using for the past four years to supplement our numbers."

"Sounds like the next year is going be so much fun!" Kimi said sarcastically.

"We're that close to being done?" Tommy asked, realization dawning on his face.

"Yup," Oliver said with a nod. "We've been running shadow operations across the galaxy with the occasional trip to Pegasus for just under four years now. Our tour of duty ends in another year."

"Unless we get rid of all of Earth's enemies first," Gabi pointed out. "We do that, and we get to go home earlier."

"Something tells me the Cylons aren't going to cooperate with that sentiment," Tommy groaned.

Ten Months Post-Disclosure:

---

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

**Earth (Surface)**

*UNSC Hephaestus (Control Room)*

"Preparations are complete, sir. We're ready for take-off," the navigational officer reported.

"Fire the engines and bring us to a stable hover," the Colonel ordered.

"Powering engines," the officer reported as the ship's reactors rose to full output for the second time since their construction, the first time having been a test burn of the output capacity. The rumble in the deck only lasted a second before the dampeners kicked in and everything stabilized. "Primed and ready."

"Power output stable."

"Firing."

The heave against gravity was smoother than the Colonel expected. Still shaky, but not as bad as he'd been accustomed to during his time aboard NASA's old rocket-driven shuttles.

"Thrust ratio stabilizing."

"Releasing docking clamps."

There was a thud as the arms released the city and left it hovering in the air.

"Altitude holding steady. We're a kilometer over UNSC Headquarters. Altitude variance… just under six meters."

"Systems status!" the Colonel ordered to the room at large.

"Shields are coming online now," one officer reported.

"Power output from the Standards is at peak. Output from the Mark IIs at sixty percent. ZPMs unused."

"Weapons read in the green."

"Neural interface is stable."

"Stardrive is powering up now."

"Atmosphere in the shield is cold, but breathable. All external doors are secured."

"We're good to go, Colonel," the technicians reported in sequence, the last report coming from the AI 'standing' next to the terminal that houses her hard drive.

"Course?" the Colonel asked.

"Plotted and input. ETA to New Caprica is just under two hours at half speed," the helmsman replied.

"Take us out, nice and slow. Make sure the cameras can follow us," the Colonel ordered.

*United Nations Space Command Headquarters (Command and Control Center)*

Lieutenant-General Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill sighed to himself. The woman in the room with him turned a skeptical look towards him and the General shook his head. "I hated paperwork when I had to write 'From the desk of the Office of Homeworld Security.' No it's 'From the desk of the Office of the United Nations Space Command Headquarters'," Jack explained with another sigh.

"You're missing the show," Brigadier-General Samantha Carter said as she pointed out the window at the City Ship that was pulling out of Earth's gravity well. As he had promised, Daniel had gathered the media of the UEG, namely the Global Broadcasting Network, and about a thousand 'honorary guests' to see the city off.

"Since when is Daniel one for theatrics?" Jack asked.

"I think Vala's rubbing off on him," Sam replied.

"In which sense?" Jack inquired with a devilish smirk.

"Probably both," Sam answered smoothly, a look on her face that said, 'I don't want to think about it.'

"I knew those two would end up together. Didn't think it would take this long to happen though," Jack mused.

"Really? Because I thought Daniel would just keep rebuffing her," Sam countered.

"Well, I guess if you're persistent enough people just… give-in," Jack said with a distant look to his eyes that wasn't focused on the ship rising into the clouds at a slow enough pace that it could be easily filmed for those at home.

"How's life treating you as the Director of the United Nations Space Command?" Sam asked grandiosely.

"About as well as being the designated leader of Earth's Space Forces is treating you," Jack replied.

"When's the next ship set to leave?"

"The next Aurora-class will be in orbit in two more months, the next O'Neill-class three weeks from today, and another O'Neill will be in orbit two days after the next Aurora. Other than that, I hear the Germans are close to getting their first Achilles fully crewed. Before they do, Mitchell's new ship will go up."

"Finally gave him something to do?"

"He'll be the Commanding Officer of the HC-306 Achilles-class Heavy Cruiser, the UNSC Achilles."

"So we finally named a class-leader for the Achilles-class?" Sam asked sarcastically.

"Took us long enough," Jack agreed.

"So we'll have two Aurora-class and three O'Neill-class… you do realize that gives us five Dreadnoughts, right? We only have…" Sam counted the ship off on her fingers. "The Daedalus, Odyssey, Apollo, Achilles, Emerick, Chekov, Cadhla, and Giovannetta, and, of those, only the Daedalus, Odyssey, Apollo, and Chekov are completed. Even then, the Chekov doesn't have a crew so we still only have three Heavy Cruisers. I might also add," Sam pressed through Jack's interruption, "that the five Dreadnoughts you're launching are all fully crewed. What did you do? Pull everyone from the SGC that had the experience needed and keep them for yourself?"

"Obviously," Jack replied with a huff. "Don't get me wrong. I took-in untrained personnel so they could be trained on the working ships then sent off to train the other countries on how to use the systems, but getting the Dreadnoughts crewed…"

"Makes no sense," Sam interrupted him. "What are you going to do if three Ha'tak attack one of the planets in the Protected Planets Treaty? Send an O'Neill to crush them? Or an Aurora? It's a gross misallocation of resources. We need to crew the Heavy Cruisers before we crew the Dreadnoughts, or," Sam pushed through another attempt to interrupt her, "reduce the crew of the Auroras to minimal because one person can fly the ship on their own. Take the extra people away from the Dreadnoughts, use them to train the global recruiting effort, then put them back where you wanted them all along once they're not needed in more pressing roles."

Jack sighed again and shook his head. Above them, the Hephaestus passed through the PDS and jumped into hyperspace. The unfinished hulls in slips across the planet would be completed rather quickly now that they had the first, fully operational, interplanetary mining and refining facility being sent to their richest mine. The more economically well-off countries in the UEG, and, by extension, the UNSC, had been given the designs for the Achilles-class. The not as economically powerful member-countries had been given the designs for the Post-Fifth Race Daedalus-class. The countries that couldn't produce those were, instead, given only the designs for the hulls of the Daedalus-class.

Sure there were slips across the globe full of ship hulls, but not all of them were Achilles-class, and not all of the Daedalus-class were able to be used as more than a force multiplier. To level that playing field, those economically deprived countries would produce the hulls and the crews, and other countries would produce the weapons. In all, they had five Dreadnoughts rolling off the line, five more Achilles-class Heavy Cruisers to go with the three already built, six Post-Fifth Race Daedalus-class Battlecruisers, and another four Pre-Fifth Race Daedalus-class hulls that would be upgraded after their launch.

The only ship not being built on Earth was still the Ares-class Invasion Carrier. The upgrades to the Alpha Site's own shipyards had seen another slip added to the subterranean complex and both slips taken to the standards of the slips on Earth. Since then, the Ares had been brought up to new standards, its hangars had been stuffed, and its bunks had even been filled. The full military capacity of the Invasion Carrier was finally realized, and another hull was being built next to it while the enlarged multinational crew learned to get along. The new hull was currently unnamed and progress on it was slow since they were building the whole thing from pure energy. People were more invested in getting warships in orbit than they were with getting boots on alien soil. Jack couldn't blame them, but, because it was viewed as necessary now that Caldwell had declared open war on the Wraith as a whole, the next Invasion Carrier to be completed was supposed to reinforce Pegasus with a force capable of fighting the Wraith with a superiorly trained army.

"You're right," he admitted begrudgedly. "I'll have to fill out more paperwork to get them transferred now. How are your projects coming along?"

"The Nex was finished a while ago," Sam replied with a sigh of relief. "The global power grid and surface-to-orbit ion cannon network, on the other hand, will both be brought online next month."

"That took you longer than I expected it to," Jack noted as he sat at his desk and started the paperwork to get people moved around.

"A couple of the power companies hired mercenaries to sabotage the towers we were building. We had to deploy armed soldiers to keep them from trying anything else stupid after they bombed one of the Tesla coil-style towers. After we sent a Vulture to hover over the company's main headquarters, they backed off and denied all knowledge of the event. Amazing what a couple tons worth of alien-fighting war machine can do when simply hovering over a building, isn't it?"

"Let's hope that doesn't come back to bit us in the ass," Jack mumbled.

"It won't," Sam assured him. "A Vulture hovering over a building isn't a threat, it's a form of protection. That, and the only way that General Electric can say we were threatening them is if they admit to bombing a military instillation, at which point they become enemies of the state, wanted terrorist, and the Vulture's presence becomes justified."

"And the STO network?" Jack asked with a shake of his head. "I expected that to be done months ago!"

"That was delayed by people saying they didn't want weapons installed in their neighborhoods because they felt it would make them a target in the event of another invasion force attacking Earth. We explained to them that being on Earth made them a target and that the cannons offered more protection than a ship did in terms of watching over that city, specifically, and they, slowly, started to see our logic."

"Sounds like politics," Jack said in a tone of disgust.

"The UEG is actually doing more good for us than the IOA ever did," Sam countered with an approving nod. "They worked out the contracts with the power companies and even handled the part where we pay for people to go to school after we put them out of business. The CEO of one company actually tried to apply for the scholarship program. He kept saying he was losing his company and deserved to be compensated. From what I understand, Woolsey told him that his company had made more money in the last ten years of operation than we'd ever spent on the fleet. Apparently the man was horrible with money and managed to spend all that he ever earned. He's effectively broke, but poor money handling skills don't qualify you for the scholarship program."

"You know, there was a time when I wanted to kill that man. Then he changed and I started to like him," Jack mused.

"He has done a lot for us," Sam agreed. "He got Hayes to fire Kennedy, saved Weir's job after the Battle of the Void, and has helped us keep the SGC running over the years. Granted he started out as an ass, but once he realized what Kennedy was, he started helping." When the two fell into a comfortable silence, each reflecting on different events in their crazy lives made crazier by Disclosure, Sam asked, "What's the news from Pegasus these days?"

Jack's head dropped at that. "Open war with the Wraith. Enough said."

Eleven Months Post-Disclosure:

---

Sam stood outside of the club and rubbed the bridge of her nose. 'You just had to come here, didn't you?' she asked in the privacy of her mind. With a deep sigh, she walked past the line of people waiting to get in, and approached the bouncer directly much to the annoyance of those behind her. As she did, she pulled her ID from her wallet.

"And what brings you here this fine evening, Miss…" the bouncer asked before he realized which ID she was holding out. "Ma'am," he said in a tone that was no longer one of open lust.

"I'm here to find someone," Sam replied as she put her ID back in her pocket.

"Nothing troublesome I assume?" the bouncer asked, all business now.

"If it was, I'd have a gun and an armed escort," Sam assured him before sidestepping the bouncer and walking through the door.

Not even a full dozen steps past the door, it began. "Hey, Honey, you looking for some company tonight?"

"My company is waiting for me inside," Sam replied kindly as her eyes swept over the crowd.

The good thing about Widget is that he is very large and that attracts attention. The bad thing about Widget is that he is very large and that attracts attention. Every set of eyes seemed to be constantly glancing in the same direction, so Sam followed those brief glances and there he was. Leaving her suitor behind, the other woman's eyes following after her, Sam moved through the crowd and approached the bar where the well-built piece of lab-grown flesh was sitting on a barstool drinking something she could smell from across the room (figuratively speaking of course). And as wrong as it was to think of him as such, Sam had a very serious desire to see a picture of the man the AI was made to model. If Widget really was an accurate representation of Widget, as confusing a thought as that is, then the real thing must've been a sight to behold.

Even with his back to her, Widget would know she was there before she reached the point where shouting would get his attention over the noise of the club, so when he turned to her, drink in hand and a smile on his face like a kid in a candy store, Sam wasn't surprised that he knew she was there… nor was she surprised that he was being hit on.

She got close enough to hear the tail end of the burly man that was trying to get into Widget's pants. In fact, she had just gotten her butt planted on the stool beside him when it happened. The man, a big black guy who was, admittedly, very attractive, leaned in a little closer and said, "You know what the best part about it, boy? It's not just milk that comes in quarts. So do I."

Sam, taken off-guard by the man's words, turned to look at Widget who turned to look at her. Blue eyes met green (the green brightening to a cat-like glow as a new emotion ran through the alien), then both of them started laughing hysterically. Widget was doubled over, head on the bar, chest heaving and Sam was right beside him half fallen off of her stool, leaning on Widget to keep herself from hitting the floor, tears rolling out of her eyes. By the time she finally managed to stop laughing, she was practically sitting in Widget's lap. That was an excepted development.

Sliding back onto her stool, Sam said, "You can't just up and leave without telling me first. I'm responsible for you, remember?"

"You simply must try this!" Widget happily countered as he slid a glass to her.

"What is it?" Sam asked curiously with a sigh of frustrated defeat.

"They call it an Irish Car Bomb, but it doesn't explode," Widget replied excitedly.

"Are you drunk?" Sam asked in a more serious tone.

Widget laughed at her question, a laugh that asked, 'did you seriously just me that?' "There isn't enough Human alcohol on Earth to get me drunk, Sam," Widget said. "I'm a biotic and I have three stomachs! Do you know how active that makes my metabolism?"

"Considering that food consumption on the Nex went up by twenty percent when you got a body, I'd say I have a fairly good idea," Sam replied.

"Well," Widget said with a shrug, "let's see you go millions of years without eating then be introduced to a whole world of new foods!"

"I'll take your word for it," Sam nearly-shouted over the music before taking a drink of the Irish Car Bomb. It hit. Hard. With a shiver not born of cold, Sam asked, "Why are you here?"

"That's the great question, isn't?" Widget replied with another laugh. "According to your own scientists, the answer to life, the universe, and everything is forty-two. According to Furling scientists, the answer to that same question is that we are made to live for the amusement of the Gods. Cultural divides are exciting!"

"No, Widget, why are you here?" Sam stressed. "This is a gay bar. You know… it's where people go to hook up with people of the same-sex."

"Yes, Sam, I know what a homosexual is. Believe it or not, Furlings had them too. In fact, I think there's still a couple of couples of them living… wherever the hell it is Sieon and Rana ran off to," Widget replied with a wave of his hand that indicated no particular direction. "Although, I must admit. It did take me a while to figure out that this was a homosexual specific bar. Furlings never bothered with the whole 'separation of the sexes or the sexual orientations' things."

"There are gay Furlings?" Sam asked in disbelieving tone.

"Every species has them, Sam," Widget replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "Every species. There was this one homosexual Asgard couple that I met during our war with the Nox. They were a couple of fun girls to hang out with," Widget said with a sigh of memories lost.

After a second of 'silence' (meaning neither of them spoke for no club was ever silent when open), Sam asked, "Can we go somewhere else?"

"Why?" Widget countered.

"So I can have a laugh at people trying to get into my pants that aren't wearing the same pants I do," Sam answered somewhat awkwardly.

Widget seemed pensive about that before his eyes lit up again. "We're going to Cowboys!" he declared before hoping down and making for the door, the crowd parting before him if only because it was obvious that you moved or got moved. Widget had that effect on people.

The man who had been hitting on the alien only a moment ago turned with Sam to watch him go and made a noise of appreciation in his chest.

"Hate to see him go, but love to watch him leave," Sam said as an indirect quote of the song Honkytonk Badonkadonk.

"You got that right," the man agreed as Sam followed after Widget.

"I heard that, you know," Widget said once the two of them were outside of the club. Sam's face immediately turned red with a blush and she turned towards where she'd parked. "You actually drive one of those god-awful, grounded-yet-flying, screaming metal death traps?" Widget asked as Sam led him to her car.

"Furlings didn't have cars?" Sam asked skeptically.

"We had motorized transportation, but never something as clumsy and awkward as a car. Remind me to show you what we used tomorrow. You'll never drive another car again," Widget said as he grabbed her hand and the two simply disappeared in a flash of light.

"Really?" Sam asked. "Beaming in public?"

"Well we weren't going to drive from Colorado to Texas in one night," Widget replied. "And besides, you've already disclosed the Stargate Program, so what's the problem?"

"The problem is people freaking out when alien technology gets used in front of them!" Sam stressed.

"Says one alien to another," Widget countered as he walked right past the bouncer as if he wasn't there.

Much to Sam's annoyance, the bouncer stopped her but not him. "ID," the man demanded. Sam offered the requested item then the bouncer said, "Entrance is twenty dollars due at the register," before turning to the next person in line.

Sam walked into the club to find Widget simply leaning against the counter next to a woman who, sure enough, stood before a register. Sam reached for her wallet to pay the entrance, and Widget shook his head before snapping his fingers before the woman's face. She was completely oblivious to the fact he was there.

"Damn aliens," Sam muttered as she walked past the woman who was, undoubtedly, under some mental spell Widget had put her in.

"Have a good time at Cowboys!" the woman called after them and Widget simply smiled.

"So, I've been catching up on Human culture…" Widget began.

"You mean staying up all night watching Netflix and Hulu?" Sam corrected.

"Sure, whatever. So there's this show called 'True Blood' that's all about vampires and there's this one chick, Jessica, who learns to brainwash people by making eye-contact with her victims and she's at a club getting hit on by a creepy old guy, she's only physically seventeen years old by the way, and she hypnotizes the guy into shouting…" Widget began as they walked past some guy in his late forties that was hitting on a girl in her early twenties that looked utterly uninterested in the man.

As they walked past him, Widget snapped his fingers and the man shouted, "I'm a pervert with a big boner for Jesus!"

The woman started laughing, the man looked confused, Widget was beaming with pride, and Sam punched him in the arm for messing with the guy's head. "You're a menace to society."

"Human society perhaps," Widget countered with a laugh. "Furlings are immune to mental manipulation of that sort."

"Well stop doing it!" Sam demanded.

"You know you think it's funny too," Widget shot back with another chuckle.

"That's beside the point," Sam replied as they walked up to the bar.

"Admit it, you're just jealous because Humans, for all their upsides, aren't anywhere near as awesome as Furlings. We've got biotics, telepathy, immortality, and we're stronger than you too."

"And yet there's so few of you left," Sam shot back.

"That's just wrong!" Widget said with a half-glare at her. "Oh, who am I kidding? I can't stay mad at you."

"And I abuse that, don't I?" Sam asked with a devilish smile as the bartender walked over.

"What are you having?" he asked.

"What's the strongest thing you have?" Widget inquired.

"Are you looking to pass out or are you looking to forget something… or someone?" the bartender smirked.

"I'm looking for something on Earth that has enough kick to actually hit all three of my stomachs at once," Widget replied truthfully.

The bartender seemed taken aback by that, then he nodded approvingly. "First alien I've ever served," the man said as he started digging around under his counter.

"To be completely honest, you'd never be able to tell if a Jaffa walked in here," Sam countered.

"Or a Tollan," Widget added. "Or an Athosian, a Setedan, a Genii… the list of near-Human aliens in the universe is remarkably long."

"No shit?" the bartender asked. "Weird."

"So, what have you got?" Widget asked excitedly.

"I have for you a trilogy," the bartender replied as he started mixing together a drink. "We call this 'The Bastard Trilogy' or the 'Bastard on the Beach.' I know it's a contradiction, but it's actually four drinks," the bartender explained. "You have the Suffering Bastard, the Dying Bastard, the Dead Bastard, and the Mai Tai which means 'In Heaven.' Some people say there's actually a fifth drink and that you're supposed to begin with a Gin Fizz to warm up, but if you've got an alien metabolism and three stomachs," the bartender said with small chuckle and shake of his head, "then I doubt you'll need it.

"Now, the Suffering Bastard actually has two recipes. Option A: one shot of fresh lime juice, four shots of chilled ginger ale, a dash of angostura bitters, your choice of one shot of rum or bourbon, and one shot of gin garnished with mint sprig, an orange wheel, and a maraschino cherry. Option B is three/fourths an ounce of Orange Curacao, one-point-five shots of rum, one shot of over-proof rum, one shot of fresh lime juice, two shots of orange juice, and half a shot of Orgeat Syrup."

"Just do both," Widget said.

"You got it," the bartender said with another shake of his head.

He made the drinks and handed them both to Widget who smelt both then passed one to Sam. "Bottoms up!" the alien declared before draining the whole cup in one go. Without flinching I might add. He then looked at Sam who had yet to pick her cup up. "It's not like you have to drive home!" he insisted and Sam, much to her later regret, did as she was told. "Atta girl! Next round!"

"You're supposed to drink it, not shoot it!" the bartender said in a shocked tone.

"Now you tell me," Sam said as she put her empty glass down.

"Humans are weird," Widget added with a shake of his head.

"If you say so," the bartender replied. The man was oddly comfortable serving an alien, which was good because Sam doubted Widget would leave if told to solely on the grounds of not being Human. "Next up, the Dying Bastard. One shot of brandy, one shot of gin, one shot of rum, half a shot of lime juice, one dash of bitters, and one shot of ginger ale."

Another drink made, another drink shot back by an alien. Sam, however, took the bartender's advice and simply drank the concoction. "Step three, the Dead Bastard. One shot of brandy, one shot of bourbon, one shot of gin, one shot of rum, half a shot of lime juice, one dash of bitters, and one shot of ginger ale. At this point you should be really feeling it," the bartender said as he handed out the drinks.

"You got that right," Sam agreed as her head started buzzing happily.

"Assuming you aren't passed out or worshipping the Porcelain Goddess, the last part of the Bastard Trilogy is the Mai Tai. Half a shot of triple sec, half a shot of dark rum, half a shot of Crème de Almond, one shot of light rum, some pineapple juice and sweet and sour mix. Am I to assume you want one too?" the bartender asked Sam who looked halfway towards 'worshipping the Porcelain Goddess' by now.

Widget did as Widget does while Sam just tried to get the drink down. After that, Widget kept ordering drinks while Sam, much to her later regret, tried to keep up. Sometime later, she was leaning on him for support because the world was spinning too fast for her to handle and Widget said, "This chick has it figured out!"

"What?" Sam asked in a delirious tone.

"The song," Widget replied, so Sam listened.

"He needed something soft and loud, and sweet and proud, but tough enough to break a heart. Something beautiful and breakable that lights up in the dark, so God made girls. God made girls. He stood back and told the boys, 'I'm about to rock your world,' and God made girls (For singing in your front seat). God made girls (For dancing to their own beat). He stood back and told the boys, 'I'm about to rock your world,' and God made girls."

"Well *hick* at least I know you're *hick*," Sam tried to say only to tip further over and land with her head resting on his leg.

"She's cut off," the bartender said.

In response, Sam tried to say something angry but only managed to start giggling incessantly. "I agree," Widget's voice said from above her, the bass in his tones making his whole chest vibrate when he talked.

What happened next, nobody knows.

When Sam finally came-to, she was lying in her bed with a headache listening to the steady sounds of air passing through another person's nose. She sat up, which increased the severity of her headache, and looked to where Widget was passed out on the floor of her bedroom aboard the Nex. And so it was that Sam woke up one morning with a half-naked alien, half-naked from the waste up thankfully, passed out on the floor of her room where she slept aboard an alien-built spaceship in orbit of earth, both of them hung-over, her head throbbing, and thought to herself, 'What has my life become?'

She shook her head and there was a hitch in the breathing of the other occupant of her room. With a groan of discomfort, Widget pushed himself off of the floor and sat at the foot of her bed with his back against the mattress. "What's that you were saying about there not being enough Human alcohol on Earth to get you drunk?"

"Consider me proven wrong," Widget replied in a bleary tone.

"Now comes the fun part," Sam said as she slid off her mattress… to realize she wasn't wearing anything but her undergarments.

"I had nothing to do with that!" Widget quickly informed her. "You started stripping before we even left the bar. You owe me a shirt, by the way, and I really liked that one!"

"I do?"

"You spilt flaming alcohol on me, and that's another thing. Why the hell did the bartender light a drunk-ass woman's drink on fire?"

"What did I order?"

"Fuck if I know. I remember the song on the radio was Fireball by some guy I can't remember the name of. Next thing I know, you've got a glass of flaming alcohol and you're throwing it at me shouting 'FIREBALL!' in sync with the song. My shirt catches fire, I blast the flames away with my biotics, the club goes quiet at the sight, then the song shouts 'FIREBALL!' again so I just went with it and everyone went back to dancing," Widget explained as he rubbed a sore shoulder and Sam noticed that, as he had said, there was a minor burn on his naked chest and the waistband of his pants were singed. "Remind me to pad the floors. Metal sucks to sleep on."

"Then sleep in a bed next time," Sam shot back as she slipped into her closet to get dressed.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Widget waved her off as he left her room. "I'll be back in a second," he added over his shoulder before there was a thud of displaced air.

Sam poked her head out of her closet to ask what he meant only to realize the thud was a biotic Charge. With a sigh, she went back to putting on her uniform. Then she remembered why she was so willing to get plastered last night. It was her day off. Another thud announced Widget's return, the alien properly clothed now and a smile on his face.

"You ready for this?" he asked excitedly.

"Ready for what?" Sam questioned skeptically.

"Do you recall anything from last night? Like the part where you tried to drive and I said I'd never get into one of those death traps on wheels? You know, the part that was followed immediately by me promising you that I would show you how Furlings got around before the Fall?"

"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" Sam asked.

"You'll never know if you don't try," Widget said with a smile while holding out his hand.

"Is that supposed to be reassuring?"

Her answer to that question was a roll of green eyes followed by a three-fingered hand grabbing her wrist. With all the ease of an alien born stronger than the most hardcore weight lifter on Earth, Widget pulled Sam into him, tossed her onto his back, and said, "Hold on!" before there was a third thud of displaced air.

The world around Sam turned into a streak of green light then stabilized as they reached an intersection. Widget planted his foot on the wall and pushed off with another thud, the world turning into a green tunnel once more. A few more thuds and they were standing in a large, cavernous hangar. The only thing present in the room was a thing that looked like a motorcycle that was simply hovering above the floor.

"And that is?" Sam asked.

"They're named after a type of bird from Glacialis, so the name doesn't translate into English. Long story short, they get you from point-A to point-B FAST and without biotics."

...

Kimberly took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. With any luck, today would be another quiet day with no problems. Without any luck, this day would get her fired. She hated being in charge on Sam's day off. She had led small teams before, sure, but a ship crewed by people from almost every country across the globe? That was daunting."

With another deep breath, Kimberly stepped out onto the platform that served as a train station for the ship's internal transportation grid, which was to be upgraded to a beaming system later this week if all went to plan, and joined the others waiting for the train. That was another strange part of her daily life. She knew she was in orbit of Earth, and yet she was still living in an apartment (an apartment aboard an alien spaceship) riding the subway to work (aboard that same alien spaceship). She shook her head at that.

Then she heard a scream of terror.

Kimberly looked up the dark tunnel that ran the length of the ship directly above the massive coaxial cannons that had been installed and managed to make out two things. The first was the train fast approaching the station. The second was a small vehicle riding just ahead of the train with a rocket-based propulsion system providing it with an incredible speed. Sitting atop the hovering, rocket-propelled vehicle was the massive bulk of their resident AI-turned-organic, and, clinging to him with her arms tightly wrapped around his waist still screaming, was Sam.

The small vehicle roared past the station and Kimberly just barely managed to catch a glimpse of blonde hair flowing out from under the helmet of the second rider. Then she blinked and they were past the station, the train was pulling in, and the only thing Kimberly could think was, 'I want one!'

Twelve Months Post-Disclosure:

---

"To a future that's only getting brighter!" Lieutenant-General Jonathan 'Jack' O'Neill declared, a cheer of 'here here' rising from the table.

Gathered together all in one place for the first time in months, the members of SG-1, minus Jonas Quinn who couldn't make it despite being invited, were joined by a few of their closest friends and family.

"Hard to believe it's been a year to the day," Colonel Ian Davidson said as he took a long drink of his beer.

"And a good year at that," Lieutenant-General Hank Landry agreed gruffly. Clearly he still believed this was all some type of dream. Things never went this good for them unless it was because they were captured by Hathor and having their minds probed. Then again, it was Hammond who was in charge when that particular incident occurred.

"We've come a long way," Doctor Daniel Jackson added with a nod.

"It has been 'a hell of a ride'!" Vala Mal Doran exclaimed, her glass raised high.

"To those who couldn't make it here," Brigadier-General Samantha Carter called out, her glass joining Vala's.

"Hail the victorious dead!" the now full-bird Colonel Cameron Mitchell declared.

"Hail the victorious dead!" a chorus answered him followed by a moment of respectful silence.

"We have lost a lot of good people," Lieutenant-General George Hammond said. "If they were still here, they'd be proud of what we've accomplished. Earth is united!"

Another chorus of, "Hail the victorious dead!" answered his words.

"We've worked hard to see this day," George continued. "We've each suffered our wounds, faced our own demons, and lost a friend or two along the way. Today we celebrate the anniversary of Disclosure. Once upon a time, the word was a curse. Now it unites us as Humans of one world with one voice. Now, I believe Jack has prepared dinner this fine evening, so if it's burnt and tastes like crap, just act like it's five-star quality or he'll drop a plasma round on you from orbit."

"Hey!" Jack said defensively. "That would be a gross misallocation of resources, and the collateral damage would be too costly. I'm far more likely to send a Vulture loaded up with our Ground Forces to make things more… personal." A rictus of laughter followed their banter as Jack went to get the steaks off the grill.

"So what's with the new structuring of the UNSC Armed Forces, anyway?" Daniel asked as he served potato salad by the spoon-full. "Vala made it," he added quietly when Sam poked at her serving with her fork, a concerned look on her face.

"Three branches exist in the UNSC to the exclusion of all others. There's the Space Force, they fly the spaceships, go figure, the Air Force, they fly the fighters, gunships, and dropships, and the Ground Force, they're the boots and treads on the ground. There is no 'Army' or 'Marines' arguing over who's better. Now it's just the Ground Force. General term used to describe everything from the mobile artillery pieces and the tanks, to the armored boots marching across alien soil," Jack explained as he returned with the main course.

"And you're in charge of all of that?" Vala asked.

"Unfortunately," Jack replied with a groan of dismay. "On the bright side, I get to delegate. Sam's been named the Director of the Space Force. The only authority greater than hers in terms of ships is my own. General Ervin's been named the Director of the Ground Force since he's already the CO of the Ares and Taylor here's been named his Executive Officer. I still need someone to delegate the Air Force to, but my first pick won't take the job," Jack added, glaring at Cam.

"I am not being promoted to a General!" Cam said defiantly. "I just got the Achilles and you're already trying to put me behind a desk! Let me have my own ship for a few years then we'll readdress the issue."

"Or you could just stop being selfish and help an old friend out," Jack countered.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.

"Come one, Jack, let the boy have his fun!" Ian said with a deep laugh. "Even Sam's itching to get back out there. The only reason you got her pinned into the place she's in is because she's the only Human with Furling DNA in the whole galaxy!"

"Speaking of which, where are the Furlings. We haven't been able to make contact with the Impolan Stargate in months. What ever happened to them?" Sam asked.

"They abandoned their base," Hank replied as he cut into his steak. "Beautifully done, Jack."

"Thank you," Jack replied with a nod.

"Why did they do that?" Daniel asked.

"When the Furlings freed the Isai from the asteroid they had encased her in, they destroyed the asteroid in the process. After that, both the Impolans and Furlings split up and went their separate ways. Every now and again we get a message from the Impolans telling us to avoid a certain planet. That planet is then either attacked by the Cylons, the Lucian Alliance, Ba'al, or their own forces," Widget replied through a mouth full of food.

"Manners, Widget," Sam snapped. In reply to that, Widget stuck his tongue out at her with it still covered in mashed potatoes and steak. "You're such a child," Sam said with a shake of her head, the table laughing at her annoyance.

"They never rest, do they?" Daniel asked in reference to their previous conversation.

"Come now, Daniel. If they did, you never would be able to. They're keeping two of Earth's enemies at bay while we build up our forces. Just thank them and stop questioning their work ethic," Vala chided him.

"She does have a point," Ian agreed. "Our long range sensors have even picked up one of their ships scouring the Cyrannus Sector. They're going really in-depth with their study of the Cylons. I've actually met the Mimner now. He showed up to ask the Colonials about the Cylons then left again. Strange man."

"Indeed," Teal'c said again.

"So the Furlings just vanished from the face of the galaxy? Again?" Vala inquired.

"Well, Widget, you're the all-knowing AI," Jack prompted.

"First, I am not omniscient," Widget countered.

"It's true, he's not," Sam added with a taunting smirk.

"Second, they're not in range of my sensors anymore."

"Not in range?" Daniel asked.

"Don't you have a galaxy-spanning network of satellites?" Vala added.

"Well, the nefork is extemely old and sefral of the satellites don't work anymore *swallow* which means there are blind spots in my 'vision.' *pause to get more food* The last thin I goth that indicated anyfing about their whereabouts put the Isai at the edge of the galxy. Then they vanished. I fink they're searching Dark Space for te Demons."

"Stop talking with your mouth full!" Sam all but shouted while punching the AI sitting beside her in the arm.

"He afed a question!" Widget countered defensively.

"Then chew and shallow before you answer it!" Sam insisted.

"I love that movie!" Widget exclaimed.

The conversation, once again, was interrupted by a round of chuckles. Sam shook her head but couldn't stop the laugh from escaping her lips. She had to admit, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a good movie.

"Speaking of movies, I hear that there will be one made on the Battle for Earth," Teal'c mused.

Jack made a sound of being disgusted, Landry shook his head, and Hammond nodded sadly in reply. "We wanted a documentary that focused on the people serving. Instead we're getting a sci-fi rip-off that's about the action and excitement of killing aliens!" Jack practically spat. "We have allies that are aliens, and the media's trying to make us look like alien-haters! What happens when that makes it off of Earth, huh?"

"Calm down, Jack," Daniel said soothingly. "Michael Bay lost the bid to produce the movie. Emmett Bregman won full rights to the production of a movie with a working title of 'Fall of the Gods.' He's going to incorporate the footage he shot of us three years back when…" Daniel trailed off before clearing his throat. "When Janet was still alive."

A moment of silence followed his words, then Jack finally nodded approvingly. "At least he's already proven he's dedicated to getting the truth out. He won't spin it politically or make it about the entertainment value. How much is he doing?"

"All the way from the interviews from three years ago up to today so expect him to request another interview sometime soon. He'll take everyone through the story of the Stargate Program with interviews, real footage, and facts. There won't be any purposefully generated over-exaggerated explosions or unexpected plot twists. Just the Stargate Program pure and simple," Daniel replied.

"Technically, the 'Stargate Program pure and simple' has several plot twists. Adria being one of them," Vala countered.

"And how go the defenses of Earth now that you have revealed the existence of the Stargate?" Teal'c asked with a small smile. Clearly the Jaffa was leading up to something.

"The surface-to-orbit defense network is in place and the global power grid in up and running. Now we're looking at building arcologies to house the population of the more densely populated areas," Sam replied. "And how's the recovery of Dakara coming along?" she added with a knowing smile of her own.

"We have restored much that was lost and have even safeguarded the planet from further assault by installing a planetary defense shield of our own," Teal'c replied with a prideful smile.

"I figured as much," Sam said.

"That's enough of that talk!" Jack cut in as he sat at the head of the table. "No more talk about wars and space and weapons. Daniel, Vala, how's the married life treating you?"

"Well," Vala replied with a huff, "Daniel refuses to open a joint bank account with both our names on it. I'm starting think he doesn't trust me with money."

"It took you long enough to figure that out," Daniel said with a casual shrug as he started eating. Vala looked at him indignantly and the group burst into laughter at Vala's facial expression.