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.

39. Another Tortured Soul

Chapter 38

Another Tortured Soul

***Pegasus Galaxy (UEG-Claimed Territory)***

**Black Hole (Orbit)**

*UEG Atlantis (East Pier Balcony)*

"Beautiful, is it not?" Teyla asked as she walked up behind Weir who was staring out at the black hole they now orbited, the fleet surrounding the city as Caldwell had the ships recalled.

"Frightening, actually," Weir replied without turning away. "I never thought that living in orbit of an all-powerful gravimetric singularity capable of crushing anything caught in its field, even light, would be safer than living on Lantea."

"Things have indeed gotten out of hand," Teyla agreed. As another hyperspace window opened to deposit the Gaia back into regular space, Teyla made a noise of surprise.

"What is it?" Weir asked as she finally turned to meet Teyla's eyes.

"I always misjudged the size of Atlantis," Teyla replied. "Being a city, I thought it the largest ship ever created. I know John has always thrown around numbers like eleven… kilometers, I believe you call them, but it never meant anything to me. Looking at the ships in your fleet, I think I'm finally starting to understand. The Gaia is nearly the size of the city, but the Nex is larger than Atlantis while still being smaller than a Hive. To think that the Wraith ships are bigger than Atlantis… it puts things into perspective."

"That's one thing I never did ask you," Weir said with a nod. "What did you think of Earth?"

Teyla shook her head in awe in reply to that question. "I've never seen so many people in one place. There are cities on Earth with larger populations than entire planets in Pegasus. I can see why the Wraith so strongly desired to reach Earth, but I can also see how foolish they were to think they could conquer your people. Even if your entire defense network failed, your people are… very much like the Setedans. I believe every Human on Earth would die fighting before the Wraith managed to capture a meaningful portion of your population to use as a food source. To be honest, your people scare me."

"You're not the only one," Weir sighed. "The UNSC is growing faster than any military power in the history of the Milky Way Galaxy. I just hope that, when we're done struggling to get rid of the Goa'uld and the Wraith and peace is a viable option, they'll be willing and able to stop fighting. I'd hate to live to see the day when Earth became the new Goa'uld Empire."

Teyla shook her head. "I don't think you have it in you. If the military of Earth decided they wanted to conquer the galaxy, there'd be a… civil war, I believe you call it. The military itself would be split into multiple factions. Those who want war, those who want peace, and those who want to break away from Earth to avoid the conflict that will follow. The people will take sides as well, and what is left of your people when the war ends will be the same, good-hearted people that exist now."

"You have more faith in my people than I do," Weir scuffed.

"That is because I see them from the view of a third-party observer. I can see what you cannot," Teyla said reassuringly.

Weir smiled at her, a silent 'thanks' for the kind words, then turned back to the black hole. The accretion disk was full of material captured in the tiny center of the black hole. The super-heated matter being pulled in by enough gravity to destroy Atlantis was a beautiful swirl of reds and blues and purples. Her musings were interrupted by a beep in her ear.

"Doctor Weir, General Caldwell's requesting you attend the war summit," Chuck informed her.

"I'll be there in two minutes," Weir replied. She then took a deep breath and steeled herself. This is one meeting she wished she could stay home sick from.

*UEG Atlantis (War Room)*

The 'War Room' was essentially just a copy of the Conference Room only it was located in Caldwell's publically-acclaimed 'Military Command Tower.' The biggest difference between the two rooms was that this one had access to restricted military technologies that were set up around the room to display gathered Intel. Atlantis' sensors were the most advanced known model in the galaxy before the Post-Fifth Race upgrades. Now, there was a scaled down version that had been altered with improved targeting algorithms on their ships. As such, the Vulture that had been in orbit of Asuras had scanned the planet with the same level of clarity that Atlantis' could've had the city been sent to perform the task. That was the level of technology the UNSC was dealing with now.

Weir took her seat at the end of the table opposite Caldwell as the other members of the Atlantis Expedition's military attachment familiarized themselves with the data available to them, which only showed the forces the Asurans had built over the past year and left out the reason this meeting was being held in orbit of a black hole. Because the thought of scanning a planet with enough accuracy to locate one DNA strand amongst millions wasn't enough, the scans taken by the Vulture had even gone as far as mapping out the Asuran power grid, their mines, refinement facilities, and shipyards. The amount of Intel gathered by a single ship the size of a Goa'uld mid-ranged bomber was staggering.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Caldwell began as he took his seat at the head of the table and motioned the others to do the same. "As you all know, we find ourselves in the delicate position of being on the losing end of our war with the Wraith. What you don't know is the severity of our desperation. In an attempt to bolster their numbers and upgrade their forces, the Wraith have hacked the Asuran Collective."

The room was instantly silent.

Finally someone dared to speak. The CO of the Gaia stood to his feet, an unsteady wavering to his aged stance, but a fire in eyes nonetheless. When he spoke, he did so in his native tongue, which was also the only language the man knew. As such, there was a split-second delay after the Admiral began speaking and the translators around the room allowed each person present to hear his words in the language of their choosing.

"The Japanese have two sayings I wish to share with you," the Admiral began. "Fall seven times, stand up eight. We have fallen, yes, but we are still alive. We still have both the will and the ability to fight, so we will do just that. Even if we have lost this battle, we are far from having lost the war. The second saying of my people I wish to share follows thusly. Had the pheasant not screamed, it would not have been shot!" the Admiral declared, his words punctuated by his fist slamming into the table.

"The Wraith have made a mistake! They underestimated us, and have shown their hand too soon. We now have an advantage the likes of which we previously lacked. Before, it was the Wraith and the Asurans, though we knew it not, that were hunting us while we hunted the Wraith. Now, we are hidden safely where the Wraith cannot find us and will not think to look. Even the sensors aboard the Asuran vessels will be incapable of finding us now that the black hole masks our presence. However, we know where both of our greatest enemies lay their heads at night. We have the advantage of knowing where to strike. The Wraith do not.

"We are not pheasants," the Admiral stated in a tone that left no room for argument. "We are the hunters. Had the Wraith not decided that they wanted to feed on Humans, we would not have declared war on them. Had we not pushed the Wraith into such a state of desperation, they would not have hacked the Asurans. I disagree with you, General. I do not think we are on the losing side of this war. Out of numerous engagements, we have lost two, and both of them were lost to the Asurans, not the Wraith. They are the ones who are desperate, not us. They are the ones sitting immobile on a planet letting others do the dirty work for them, not us. We are the ones sitting in a mobile weapon of war that our ancestors built, then we improved with the technology of the Asgard to whom we are the heirs!

"The Wraith are a plague, nothing more. We are the Fifth Race, the heirs to the Asgard! We have stood against the tyranny of the Goa'uld when no others dared, and we have stood victorious upon the ashes of their dead! We, alone, stood against the Ori when all others were too weak to take them on, and crushed their armies with a drastically smaller force. The Wraith outnumber us, as they have always done, but they are far from outclassing us! We are the Fifth Race!" the Admiral declared. "Start acting like it!

"The Asgard saw something in us that they saw in no other species. They didn't see warmongers trying to conquer everything, they saw a people working against all odds to liberate those who had no means of fighting back. We are not cowards to hide in the shadows and flee when we suffer a few difficulties! So the Wraith have found a way to upgrade their forces? I ask you this: So what? No matter what the Asurans do for them, the Wraith are still a disorganized force. They are loosely allied with one another at the best of times, and we've seen what a 'food shortage' can do to their strongest alliances.

"I ask you this, people of the Fifth Race. Are the Wraith the only ones capable of relocating planetary populations overnight? Are we incapable of taking those who are willing to do what is necessary to survive and moving them? We are the Fifth Race! We have all the collective knowledge of the Asgard, the Ancients, the Furlings, and the Tau'ri! We are far from impotent, and the Wraith are hell-bent on learning that the hard way. I say let them! If the Goa'uld Empire, which stood for more than ten-thousand years in the absence of a force willing and able to fight them, can be toppled in ten years by a technologically and numerically inferior force, than what can the UNSC do now that it has unrestricted access to Earth's industrial might and all the power of three of the Five Great Races? We are NOT pheasants! We. Are. The hunters!"

"Then let us hunt together!" the CO of the Cream Puff declared victoriously, the assembled soldiers immediately adding their agreement to that sentiment.

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

**P4X-650 (Orbit)**

*Alpha Site (Shipyards)*

"What's your status, Taylor?" General Ervin asked as he walked up behind the man in question. He had stopped trying to address Brandon by his rank seven months ago. It was too much to say to get one person's attention, and Brandon was far off from being angry about it. That really was a mouthful, and being the higher ranking officer had its perks.

"Final checks for the personal weapons and armor systems were performed last night," Taylor replied as he looked over the holoscreen being projected before him by the tac-pad built into his gauntlet. "We began the checks on the mobile armor and artillery pieces this morning. Estimated time to completion on them is twenty minutes. The only thing left to check is the Ares herself. When are the Heavy Cruisers supposed to be here?"

"Half an hour ago," Ervin replied. "They're waiting on you, not the other way around."

"Well, the Ares' systems are constantly monitored by the AI, so that report's ready," Taylor said as he read over the ship's operational status. "Looks like the God of War is in as good a state as he can be, so the only thing left is the final checks on the tanks. Those can be done en route, though, so we can leave whenever you're ready, sir."

The General input a few commands into his own tac-pad to inform his Executive Officer that he was leaving then input the command to have the two of them beamed aboard the ship that sat in the slip below the observation room Ervin had found Taylor in.

Appearing on the Command Deck of the now fully crewed Invasion Carrier, General Ervin took two steps than sat in the command chair. "Open the doors," he ordered.

Above them, the massive doors slid aside to reveal the light of the sun that was shining bright over the Alpha Site. The sunlight glistened off of the hull of the ship that was no longer the largest in Earth rapidly growing fleet. As the doors opened fully, the anti-gravity fields activated and the vertical-thrust engines flared to life with a rumble and the Ares smoothly lifted free of her docking clamps before flying above the rim of the mountain slope the slip was built into. As they cleared the rock, the primary forward-vectored engines came online with a roar of their own. The rock behind the Invasion Carrier heated up as the engines powered up and sent the mass of the Ares gliding into the air. The nose tipped up and the power to the engines increased until the ship was pushing out of the gravity well of the planet below.

As they reached orbit, the form of two more UNSC warships greeted them. Both of them were HC-306s, but from different countries. One was the Giovannetta, a Heavy Cruiser built and crewed by the Italians. The other was the Chekov, the first ship built by the Russians, but the second to be crewed by them. The ship's namesake was the very man who had captained the Korolev until its untimely demise at the hands of the Ori at the Battle of the Supergate. According to scuttlebutt, the ship's AI was even a replica of the man's persona.

'Definitely nothing morally questionable about that,' Taylor thought with a sarcastic huff. He only hoped that, when he died, he wasn't forced to keep living like that. There was a reason Humans were made to be mortal.

The two Heavy Cruisers outsized the Ares by fifty meters, but the Ares still had the larger crew. The 304s used a crew of two-hundred. The 306s used a crew of five-hundred. The 305s, on the other hand, had a crew of two-hundred to run the ship, and carried five-thousand soldiers into battle. With the technicians and specialists onboard to maintain both the ship and her armor pieces, the total number of people that called the Ares home during an operation was a staggering five-thousand, five-hundred souls. Needless to say, the Heavy Cruisers would defend them to the last before letting the ship fall, but that's why the Ares never saw front-line combat.

"Sir, the Giovannetta and Chekov have formed on our flanks," the helmsman reported.

"Take us into hyperspace," the General ordered. Before them, the swirling vortex of hyperspace consumed the viewports as the three ship entered a single, massive hyperspace window, their collective power output and hyperdrives making for a faster speed for three ships traveling together as opposed to each ship arriving at the target world separately. "ETA?"

"Two hours, thirty-six minutes," the helmsman replied.

"Taylor?" Ervin asked without asking.

"The Ground Forces will be ready within the hour, sir," Brandon replied with a crisp salute.

"Good," Ervin said with a nod before dismissing the man back to his task of readying their tanks.

Their target today would suffer a fate far worse than Ptah's forces had. With the initial design of their armor and railguns, and only three-hundred soldiers putting boots on the ground, the Ares had conquered a force of five-thousand of the best trained Jaffa in the galaxy. Now, with five-thousand men and women wearing an improved version of that same armor and wielding various redesigns of Ptah's plasma rifles as their primary weapons, the Ares would take one of Ba'al's worlds. The world in question had roughly fifteen-thousand Jaffa defending it with clunky, plasma-firing staff weapons. Add to that the five-thousand Kull Warriors with advanced armor and weapons of their own, and their victory world be hard fought.

Ba'al had the advantage of knowing the terrain, but only one of Ba'al's clones had witnessed the power the Tau'ri could bring to bear, and that clone was dead. Burnt alive by a biotic flame born of the wrath of what used to be his best assassin from what the General had heard. Now Ba'al would taste a new kind of defeat, and this time Earth would conquer their foe without the help of another species. The Impolans wouldn't be needed this time. This victory would be Earth's, and Earth alone would reap the benefits of capturing Karia.

***Pegasus Galaxy (UEG-Claimed Territory)***

**Black Hole (Orbit)**

*UNSC Paciscor of Nex (FTL Core)*

"That old red dirt the first thing you learn; you don't get nothing that you don't earn. Humble pride that I grew up on, you find out just how bad you want it. Sun in our eyes, backs to the fences, didn't know the odds were against us. Hit the wall smoking and spinning, still wasn't thinking about nothing but winning. That's the only way I know. Don't stop till everything's gone. Straight ahead never turn round. Don't back up. Don't back down. Full throttle. Wide open. You get tired you don't show it. Dig a little deeper when you think you can't dig no more. That's the only way I know."

"You've become awfully musical lately," Sam noted as she walked into the room where the impressively built form of the AI-turned-organic was buried chest-deep in the inner workings of what remained of the Nex's wormhole drive.

"You would too if you spent a couple million years as an unfeeling machine trapped in a computer with no interaction with the living world only to then leave the world you were trapped on to find an entirely new culture to explore," Widget replied casually as his hand groped around for something. Noting the tool lying a few inches away from his hand, Sam kicked the wrench-like implement towards him. "Thanks," Widget's voice came at a mumble as he pulled his impressive bulk deeper into the massive machine.

'Seriously?' Sam asked herself with a mental kick. 'Why is everything 'impressive' about him?' Shaking her head and dispelling the growing fog, Sam asked, "So what's wrong with it?"

"Seriously? You insisted that we jump the Nex between galaxies, I shouted, 'WE CAN'T DO THAT!' because you wouldn't listen, then you did it anyway, I said 'Hold onto your nuts' right before we jumped, told you that we'd be stuck here for a while, and you're asking what's wrong with it?" Widget's muffled, though obviously angry, voice replied.

"Yes," Sam stated simply.

"There's gunk clogging up one of the…" Widget trailed off with a grunt as he pulled something loose. There was the sound of flowing solids splatting on the ground like vomit hitting the toilet and Widget made a noise of disgust. "Let's just say, the ship is long overdue for its two-thousand year tune-up and you jumped it past its limits. We're lucky to still be alive," Widget said as a grease-covered, faintly glowing object was slid towards her. "Don't touch that, it's covered in eezo dust," Widget warned with another grunt before his body started glowing darkly.

With a third grunt, his biotics flared and a fountain of black goop shot out of the top of the FTL drive to rain down around the room. "What the hell is this?" Sam asked in a disgusted tone as she flicked a small glob of black goo off of her arm. Surprisingly enough, that's all that had hit her.

"It's like oil in your car," Widget replied as he kept working. "It keeps the moving parts moving smoothly, doubles as a coolant, and even has certain chemical properties that are necessary for the drive to work properly. So it's like oil, water, and blood for the FTL drive in one package."

"So the FTL drive is bleeding?" Sam asked in a confused tone.

"It's already lost blood," Widget grunted in reply. "I'm… uh… repairing the artery and… giving it a blood transfusion? You know what, let's just call it an oil change. That's simpler."

"Okay… How did this happen exactly?"

"Sam, the Nex is older than I am," Widget replied. "Rana conceptualized my base-code in the lab you were in the first time you boarded the ship, and the Nex's AI core is the only computer I've ever lived in. The Ancients came to your galaxy over fifty-million years ago, and this ship predates their arrival. Add to that the three-decades the ship spent fighting the Demons and the Nex is old! Plus, the Ori gave her hell and the FTL drive was hit more than once during the Battle for Earth. Add to that the intergalactic jump and… well, we're in pretty bad shape. Will you hand me the thing that looks like a clean version of what I just slid out there?" the AI asked, his pitch-black hand appearing, barely, out from the edge of the massive machine.

"You said it was covered in eezo dust," Sam more said than asked.

"Only after I install it and we use it. Don't touch the original, but do hand me the replacement."

Sam looked at the strange piece of the greater whole then picked up a box with an image on it that vaguely resembled the requested piece. Inside the box she found a Human-made replacement piece. "Why not use the nano-forge?" Sam asked as she unwrapped the piece that had a surprising weight to it in that its weight was… changing even as she held it. "Widget?" Sam asked in a concerned tone.

"It has a mass effect field, yes, but the eezo is safely contained inside of it. There's no risk to your health… yet. As for your other question, the FTL drive is made strictly from physical pieces that haven't been interacted with by nannites. The mechanisms are too delicate to trust to a robot," Widget replied, the grunts that interrupted his speech an indicator that he was doing… well, Sam had no clue really. "I was trying to fix this before we left the Milky Way, but then Atlantis got attacked and you jump before I was ready. This has needed replacement for over twenty-six thousand years. I requested that General O'Neill have the piece flash-forged since the infrastructure of the Furling Empire is gone and I can't replace it without it, but he insisted that a company on Earth had what I needed, so I went shopping with Vala who complained incessantly that looking at tools and car parts is not shopping, I found a store that does custom fabrications, gave them the specifications for what I needed, forwarded the bill to Jack, picked up my part, and now I'm installing it too late to prevent a meltdown of the FTL core, but before we suffered a catastrophic overload so at least we're still alive to fix it, right?"

"That's a long sentence," Sam observed as she handed the part to Widget. "Why not just have the repair drones do this? I thought we got a shipment of energy-to-matter conversion drones from the City Factory last week?"

"No, that shipment got sent to the Hephaestus when they requested more drones to speed up the mining process. The next batch of conversion drones will be available in three days. The bidding's already begun with India putting a substantial amount of money into acquiring the drones. They want them to start building those vertical city towers you were talking about a few months back. Apparently their country's too densely populated for them to sustain the populace now, and mass murdering people is, apparently, frowned upon on Earth. Hmm… considering the pattern of your history, I wonder why that is."

"Yeah, I'm not taking that bait," Sam shot back to what she knew was Widget's taunting tone.

From within the guts of the fastest FTL drive in four galaxies, because the Nex was faster than the Ori, Asgard, Atlantis, and everything Earth has, Widget laughed before swearing both loudly and violently. Or, at least, Sam assumed that he was swearing. She hadn't mastered the Furling language quite yet and when Widget got angry he talked to fast for her to understand him no matter what language he was speaking.

"What did you break?" Sam asked in a concerned tone.

"My finger," Widget replied before there was an audible snap and another curse. "Never mind, it was just dislocated. Having a nano-forged bone structure composed of gravity-forge crushed metal alloys is good for one thing, at least."

"You're ridiculous," Sam said while shaking her head.

"How did the war summit go ouch!" Widget swore as something hard hit something harder. "Banged my knee."

"Admiral Nishiike gave a riveting speech about not giving up in the face of adversity then Caldwell started ironing out a plan of attack. The main problem now is that we need the Spirit of Fire to pull off the plan that Caldwell has in mind, the ship is a month out from being ready for launch, and four days out after that from getting here. That gives the Wraith a disturbingly large amount of time to get their upgrades in place."

"Then we should launch the attack ahead of his schedule. If all he wants to do is take the Core, then we can do that with what we have."

"The Core's been moved from a tower in the city to a City Ship by Todd's orders. That City Ship has its shields up twenty-four seven and we still can't beam past a City Ship's shield for the same reason that drones can't slip past their shield."

"So we'd have to collapse the shield while under attack in orbit and the Gaia is the only ship with the firepower to get through a City Ship's shield fast enough to matter. Well, the only ship that's still FTL capable and taking the Nex means using Atlantis to move it which puts civilians in danger… I'm starting to see why this is a problem. I'll think on it and get back to you later," Widget said as the speakers in the ship crackled to life and started playing a song.

Sam shook her head at the recently 're-born' 'man' and walked down the hall. Much to her satisfaction, her assumption that the whole ship would be bothered by Widget's antics was put to rest when she noted that only the room that housed the FTL Core had the music playing.

She made the short trip from the FTL Core to the train station where the ship's tram system would take her to the CIC quicker, because, once again, something had come up that had prevented the ship from receiving its beaming package. Once back in the ship's command center, she looked around at the holograms that covered the walls. Bringing up the recorded images from before they left Earth, she looked at the large snowflake sitting in the Arctic that would be the base to another City Ship. They were producing them faster than Sam thought possible, and it was eating through their resources fast! Still, once the Athena was completed they'd have one of every class except the Demeter-class colony ship, and they'd all be going to Pegasus.

Sam shook her head at the thought. Sure Caldwell was well within his right to challenge the Wraith, but Todd was taking him… well, just as seriously as a man like Caldwell promising the extinction of your species should be taken. The threat the Wraith posed was, in turn, being taken just as seriously. Sure Ba'al was still at large, but his plan for galactic domination was already known and stopping it would be easy… she hoped. That, and the Goa'uld no longer had the military strength to take on Earth in a one-on-one fight. Even if Ba'al outnumbered Earth's defense fleet, between the drones, the PDS, and the STO network he'd never get past orbit.

Sam sat in the Control Chair and brought up the file that housed her current project. She'd been working on this for nearly a year, and construction was set to begin soon. With all the stress of the attack on Asuras that was being planned, the Nex being stranded in Pegasus, and Atlantis being on the run, she found that immersing herself in the computerized world of the Nex's AI Core was relaxing. She could sit on a beach and design a space station for Earth that would house the bulk of their military power, or she could sit in a coffee shop and do the same. All without leaving the ship. Actually, it was rather depressing. She didn't get out much latterly, and she almost always ended up chasing Widget from one bar to another when she did. The AI-turned-organic was becoming quite the functional alcoholic, and that was another of those thoughts that, because it was true, made her question the insanity that is her life.

Her train of thought was cut off when Kimberly screamed and half a dozen guns snapped to shoulders ready to fire. Well, seven guns actually, but Sam's sidearm could hardly be snapped to her shoulder.

"What? Where? I didn't detect anyone getting onto the ship!" Widget said in a confused tone as he spun around searching for something to hit with the glowing ball in his hand.

"Sorry," Kimberly said. "I'm sorry. I just… I'm sorry."

With a sigh, Sam said, "Look at yourself in the camera."

Widget did, but apparently the affect was lost on him. "I'm covered in grease," Widget said, and indeed he was. From the very top of a head that was normally covered in hair that was light brown all the way down to his waistline, Widget was pitch black. In fact, the only part of him that wasn't black were his eyes and the area surrounding them where he had worn safety-glasses. "That tends to happen when you leave an FTL drive sitting idle for millions of years then overuse it in a combat situation then fry it during an intergalactic jump it wasn't ready for. There was a leak. That's why I was fixing it. Now I have to get the superconductive coils replaced, but I need more naquadria before that can happen."

"Go take a shower," Sam said with a shake of her head as the CIC guards lowered their weapons and went back to just standing there.

"Were you just looking for an excuse to order me to get naked?" Widget asked at a deadpan.

Sam's eyes went wide, her face pale, and her voice left her entirely.

Kimberly squeaked at the thought.

And the CIC guards? They started laughing at the two women.

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

**Karia (En Route)**

*UNSC Giovannetta (Combat Information Center)*

Ammiraglio Alessandra Elia stood at the tactical plotting table across from her Executive Officer, Capitano di Vascello, or simply a Captain in the UNSC Space Force, Deangelo Basilio. Her time in the Italian Marina Militare had hardened her into something cold and lethal. She had an eye for tactical maneuvers, that's how she made Ammiraglio, the equivalent of an Admiral in the new structuring of the global military force.

"They will cluster their defenses around the production facility," Basilio said as he moved a holographic marker over the indicated area of the holographic planet.

"Did the Tok'ra not tell us in full what to expect?" Elia asked.

"They told us what they could before they were discovered. Sensors records were also forwarded to UNSC Command," Basilio replied as he replayed the gathered Intel.

"How were they discovered?" Elia inquired as ten Ha'tak exited hyperspace in the replay and ambushed the Tok'ra ship from behind, another twenty already present in orbit of the target world.

"Something about a fluctuation in the power output of their generators causing the ship's cloak to fail for all of nine-hundredths of a second."

"And that was enough?"

"The background heat of space is roughly three degrees kelvin as a constant. Any amount of heat in space is an instant giveaway. In that less-than-a-second span of time, the Tok'ra ship emitted enough heat to be seen from three times the distance that they were at. Without the cloaking field distorting light, the internal sink systems capturing the heat, and the engines stone-cold, even a thermal telescope could detect a ship coming in from a considerable distance away."

"Then how do we get around that?"

"No one's completely sure," Basilio replied with a shrug. "The Odyssey's cloak was developed by a being that was roughly half-ascended before he left Doctor Jackson's mind. The cloaking field is so advanced it not only avoids removing the Odyssey's shields, it also captures one-hundred percent of the heat produced by the ship when operating at a full burn. Even flying around shooting plasma beams at the Ori, they were still undetectable to everyone but the AIs in communication with Odysseus. The field on the Tok'ra ships only operates at fifty-percent efficiency and the ships have extra systems installed to capture the extra heat the field can't stop. These systems, however, run the risk of cooking everyone inside if they're not vented in time. The Asgard never had cloaking technology for us to duplicate, the Furlings used a more advanced system than the Tok'ra that still can't beat the one Merlin made, and the Jumper cloaks aren't even as advanced as the one on the Odyssey so we're stumped as to how to reproduce the cloak. Even the AIs can't figure it out which is telling. The best we could do is get the Ares a system capable of hiding it for a few hours at a time."

"And Doctor Jackson cannot tell us what he did?"

"To save his mind from destruction brought on by the stress of having two minds in one body, Merlin erased Doctor Jackson's memory of all that happened while they were joined. I recall reading the report in which General Carter mentions having trouble shutting the cloak off. That's how advanced it was, and all Doctor Jackson had to say was, 'Having a ZPM helps'."

"Then stealth is not an option here," Elia mused. "Not that it is needed, but an ambush from within their lines would be preferable to a drawn-out campaign for orbital supremacy. Did the Tok'ra manage to ascertain the number of enemy ships?"

"Other than the thirty they could confirm, we don't know much. We do know that each Ha'tak carries twelve wings of Death Gliders and three wings of Al'kesh mid-range bombers. That does not, however, give us an accurate count on their fighter forces. This planet produces everything from the Ha'tak to the Death Gliders and Al'kesh they carry, as well as the staff weapons, bombs, troop transporters, and everything else Ba'al uses in his war with the galaxy."

"Our concerns end once we take orbit," Elia said as she flipped through sensors readings and projected enemy forces. "The soldiers on the ground are not our concern. The thirty Ha'tak and wings of fighters and bombers are. Also, there is the possibility of more defenses," Elia continued as she pointed out several areas in orbit where the Tok'ra had detected high levels of energy output that shouldn't be there.

"Orbital weapons platforms," Basilio observed.

"And if Ba'al has those, he is likely to have surface-to-orbit cannons as well. We will have to make sure we watch for these emplacements during the engagement. Even as I'm sure the Ares will survive a direct hit from an STO cannon, their shields will be stressed during reentry and the last thing we need is STOs taking out the Vultures. Without those things, the wounded have only the long way back to the ship."

"Ha'tak, fighters, bombers, orbital weapons platforms, and surface-to-orbit cannons. The only thing that Ba'al is missing is a planetary defense shield to match the defenses of Earth," Basilio mused.

"Do not give the enemy ideas," Elia said, a small smile on her scared lips. "If you do, they will attack the Jaffa who possess the technology, but not the means to defend it against the full might of Ba'al's fleet."

"Yes, ma'am," Basilio replied.

"ETA!" Elia called to the front of the CIC.

"T-minus twenty minutes, ma'am," the helmsman on duty replied. That was normally Basilio's job, but Elia had high hopes for the man she was making her protégé.

"Then let us iron out our plan of attack," Elia said as she buckled down and got serious.

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

**Earth (Orbit)**

*UEG Clausus Cursor (Doctor Jackson's Office)*

"You have a visitor, sir," the voice said from the speaker in his desk.

"Thank you, Clark, and you can stop calling me 'sir.' I'm not in the military," Daniel replied somewhat absently as he filed away another holo-report.

"You're a member of SG-1, Doctor Jackson. Whether you want to be or not, you're a living legend to the people of Earth. Without you, we wouldn't even have figured out how to dial the Gate in the first place," Emmett Bregman said as he entered the room. "At this point, I don't see why you never enlisted."

"I'd get lost in the paperwork and never see Cheyenne again. That, and if I was in the military they would've been able to court martial me when I freed the Tollans against direct orders," Daniel replied with a warm smile as he stood to shake the man's hand. Behind him, the same camera crew that had accompanied him through the SGC all those years ago walked in to set up their equipment. "And besides, Sam would've figured it out sooner or later."

"That's a good point," Bregman said with a smile of his own. "It's also nice to see that I'm not as… unwanted as before."

"Yeah, no hard feelings, right?" Daniel asked with a small laugh. "Back then, things were… different. We lost a lot of good people."

"I know," Bregman agreed sadly.

"So, have you spoken to Jack yet?" Daniel asked in a brighter tone.

"The Director of the United Nations Space Command is a busy man, Doctor Jackson. I'm not scheduled to see him for another three months," Bregman replied. "Even Carter has more free time than he does, and, from what I understand, she's the Acting-Commander of the Space Force or something like that."

"She's Jack's second when it comes to the Space Force, yes, but she's not an 'Acting-Commander.' Once the new ship is ready, we'll have a Human-built flagship for the fleet and the Nex will become a specialized Super Dreadnought for extended, deep space deployments like the Furlings originally designed her to be. There's talk of sending her to the Ori galaxy with a small force to be sure the Ori don't get their fleet back up. They'd be launching raids on Ori production facilities since we can't destroy the damn Supergate and they're bound to come back eventually."

"Will that monstrous thing fit through the Supergate?" Rundell asked.

Daniel laughed at his question and shook his head. "Widget wants to repair the Nex's FTL drive and get it working on an intergalactic level again, but refining naquadria to the level he needs it at is… dangerous, to say the least, but it's the only superconductor in our universe that can handle the needed power surge. The plan is to send a Heavy Cruiser through, probably the Odyssey since she can cloak, then send a data-burst with coordinates back through. Once that's done, the Nex can just make the jump."

"That is so cool," Wickenhouse said in an awed tone.

"Why aren't we using those things as standard issue? Wouldn't that be better than four days to reach Atlantis?" Rundell asked.

"It would, yes," Daniel said with a nod, "but the Nex's wormhole drive is larger than a 304. I think Sam said the wormhole drive takes up enough space that more than half of a Heavy Cruiser would have to be devoted solely to its subsystems. The only other system similar to it we've encountered is the Colonial jump-drive, and even the Cylon jump-drive, which is more advanced than the Colonial model and small enough to fit into a fighter, isn't compatible with the power needed for an intergalactic jump. Needless to say, we're trying to upgrade the Cylon jump-drive we have at the Alpha Site with the tech we have on the Nex. Until then, we're sticking with supercharged hyperdrives."

"Bigger than a 304? That's the Daedalus-class, right?" Wickenhouse asked.

"Right," Daniel confirmed. "Just over three-hundred cubic meters of pipes, tubes, wires, gears, and a bunch of stuff that glows that I have no idea how to explain."

Bregman let out a low whistle at that. "And we're replacing that beast with something else?"

"Sam is the only Human in the UNSC with the FTA gene needed to operate the ship because Sieon trusted her enough to give her the ship. Sam doesn't really have the requirements to be the 'UNSC Fleet Admiral,' she's a scientist first as she puts it, so Jack needs to replace the Nex in order to replace her. To do that… well, let's just say that Jack is found of 'big honking space guns'," Daniel replied.

"How big are we talking?" James asked excitedly.

"And that's where we hit the first wall," Daniel replied with a grimace. "That's classified above even my pay-grade."

"Fair enough, Doctor Jackson. Are you ready to begin?" Bregman asked. Daniel nodded in reply and Bregman pulled out a notepad while James finished setting up the camera. The red light came on as Wickenhouse set up the computer and Rundell got their sound equipment tuned. "Ready?" Bregman asked his crew.

"Ready, sir," James replied.

"Okay…" Bregman mused as he looked down at his notepad. "If you don't mind, we'll just keep this as an interview and I'll edit it later. If the questions seem random, it's because they are."

"Fine by me," Daniel replied.

"So…" Bregman said before clearing his throat. "Have you heard the news?"

"Who has time for the News when you're left in charge of the historical part of a global education reform?" Daniel replied with a light laugh. "What's the GBN saying this time?"

"A civilian company has finally entered the space age. The Dahl Corporation won the bid for the next 304 A hull being built in Finland. Immediately after they got confirmation the ship was theirs, they had the slip workers tear out the missile tubes and expand the cargo capacity of the ship. Essentially, they have a 304 with shields, beaming tech, a hyperdrive, railguns, and a modified Pelican designed as a cargo ship with no weapons or shields. Everything else was stripped out to make room for mining equipment. They've already bought the coordinates and sovereign rights to mine the worlds that the SGC abandoned when they got the Colonials to agree to allow the UNSC to mine New Caprica."

"So there's finally going to be a company providing space-age technology to the general population?" Daniel asked with a happy nod of his head.

"Some say it's taken too long," Bregman prompted.

"Ah, I see the question," Daniel mused.

"Edit that out," Bregman said to which Wickenhouse nodded.

Clearing his throat, Daniel began again. "The UNSC isn't the global power everyone seems to think it is. Saying that the UNSC should release space age technologies to the public is like saying that the US government should release the plans for our nuclear weapons to the general population. There are certain technologies that will never reach civilian hands, and, yes, personal shields and hand-held energy weapons are amongst them…"

"Hold on," Bregman cut him off. "Take that out too. I'm not questioning why things were withheld, just that the stuff that was released wasn't able to be produced without off-world mining sites. I'm not attacking you, the UEG, or the UNSC, Doctor Jackson."

"Ah, I see," Daniel said as he started over after taking a moment to think it over. "Yes, it is about time we got a civilian mining company out in the stars, but that's not the fault of anyone trying to withhold the technology from the people of Earth. Most of the space age technology that you want in your homes can't be produced with what's on Earth. It's a matter of prioritizing resources. The UNSC currently has one world worth mining and we are stripping it fast. When we got access to New Caprica, we abandoned the other mines we had because that one planet had all the resources we needed to build an entire fleet, and the Battle for Earth cost us a lot. Upgrading the 304 As to 304 Bs drained a lot of what Homeworld Command had available to it.

"Now we have the UNSC, and the first thing we had to do was decide how to proceed. We survived the Battle for Earth, and, even then… not all of us did. We won by the skin of our teeth. If not for the Nex, which was still under the command of the Furlings during that battle, and the sacrifice it made, we would've lost more. Without the timely arrival of Atlantis, we would've lost the entire crew of the Gaia. There were a thousand souls aboard that ship when it lost its shield. They were one shot away from dying to the last. Without the unpredicted arrival of the Impolans and the twenty-three Motherships they personally destroyed…" Daniel stopped to shake his head. "The skin of our teeth, Mister Bregman.

"The first thing General O'Neill did when they named him the Director of the United Nations Space Command was devote everything we had to recovering what we lost, then expanding on it. So I ask this question to anyone who thought it took 'too long'," Daniel said before facing the camera directly "Which would you rather have? A fleet in orbit to protect you from the things that go bump in the night, or a holo-screen TV hitting the market that only the richest of the rich would be able to afford in the first place?

"New Caprica is one world with what we need to build up our forces enough to actively defend our new mine, launch attacks on Ba'al to keep him away from Earth, send ships to Pegasus to protect them from the Wraith, and still have ships left over to stay in orbit of Earth as a permanent defense force. If we tried to give civilians access to those resources, we wouldn't have the fleet we do. The UNSC is a global military power devoted to the sole purpose of protecting this planet from hostile powers. Their first mandate is to protect Earth as a whole. Because the Asgard named us their heirs, we're also contractually obligated to defend the twenty-two worlds in the Protected Planets Treaty. Behind those two mandates there stands another. We protect the innocent.

"If you want to argue anything about the UNSC, it's that we protect people who can't defend theirselves. Either that happens like it did before, with the only ship we had in this galaxy never being in orbit of Earth, or it happens with a fleet large enough to be in four places at once. It is not the responsibility of the UNSC to provide space age technology to the civilian population of Earth. It's not the UEG's responsibility either. The companies on Earth sell you your goods. If the government sells you a product, they decide what to charge you for it and there is no arguing with them. Do you really want the government or the military to have a monopoly on space age goods? No. You want a cooperation like Dahl, a mining cooperation, to mine the resources, sell the resources to companies like Gearbox, Vladof, and Corazza, and have them sell their products to Walmart, Target, and other such general-good vendors. That way, you have options as to where you buy your goods from, and those companies will all compete with one another to get the best price.

"Neither the UNSC nor the UEG control the global economy. It would be unethical if either did. Instead, the global economy will be left to work as it always has. As such, you get your space age goods when the companies who provide them do as Dahl has done and enter the space age for theirselves."

"And cut there," Bregman said with an approving nod.

"Perfect place for the quote we got from Miss Mal Doran," James noted.

"What quote?" Daniel asked worriedly. "It's not a copyrighted quote she's claiming for her own is it?"

"Don't worry, Doctor Jackson, it's just an observation she made about Human behavior," Wickenhouse assured him.

Well, 'assured' him.

"Oh, God," Daniel said with his head in his hands. "What did she say?"

Bregman smiled at him in reply. "You'll have to watch the film if you want the answer to that question, Doctor Jackson," he said with that smirk in place before jumping into the next question. "Does the UEG have laws against monopolies? If not, then Dahl just became one of Earth's largest economic powerhouses."

"The Dahl Cooperation has always been an economic powerhouse," Daniel replied smoothly, his misery promptly shoved down. "They haven't abused that power in the past. There's no reason to believe they'll begin now."

"They'll have no competition in their sales, and that's a dangerous position to be in. Power tends to go to your head. What happens when Dahl decides to save up all their money and start their own product line? Then they mine the materials, produce the goods, and sell them. Once they do that, they control the market for space age goods. They already have the only civilian-operated space ship capable of interplanetary, and even intergalactic, space travel."

Daniel steepled his fingers in thought before beginning. "The UEG doesn't have laws against a monopoly per say because of their desire to remain nonintrusive in the daily going-ons of the global economy, but the issue was addressed by the UEG Congress immediately after Dahl first placed their bid for the ship and it became clear that there was a very real possibility they would win. As companies often do, Dahl does have more money than the governments that were bidding for the hull.

"In order to most effectively prevent the misuse of the technology and abuse of power that comes with having a monopoly, a deal was struck. First and foremost was ownership of the hull. While true that the Dahl Cooperation won the bid, the ships are still built with military technology as part of the base design. Even without the missile tubes, there's still the matter of a civilian company possessing beaming technology that could bypass a bank's vault, railguns that can make precision strikes on ground targets, and shields that can survive nuclear missiles and plasma rounds with ease. Because of this, the ship is more on 'parole' to Dahl than it is owned by them… if that makes sense. To compensate, the price for the hull was lowered and a VI was installed in the ship to prevent the misuse or capture of its technology.

"In addition to this, there were other terms. The CEO of Dahl has agreed to certain stipulations on her company's possession of advanced military technology, and have been made aware of certain dangers that exist in mining off-world. First and foremost is that there are powers out in the galaxy that want what we have and even those powers getting their hands on our shields would be bad. As such, if the ship is ever engaged by the Cylons or another power like that, the ship will automatically jump back to Earth with or without all of its crew present. As such, the miners they're sending out with the ship are getting one hell of a Hazard Pay check every month, but it doesn't stop there. If Dahl is ever convicted in a court of law of having misused their economic might, the ship will be taken from them, refit into a war ship, and added to the fleet. There are countermeasures in place, but I won't call them perfect. Judges can always be bought, after all."

"Cut that last line," Bregman said. "Saying the system is flawed isn't very reassuring when you just said civilians have been given access to weapons of mass destruction," he added so Daniel knew why it was being cut. "There have been whispers, comments, and even outcries that we haven't gotten news from orbit in a while. I have to admit I'm one of the more outspoken people in that regard. It's strange not having a weekly update on the going-ons in orbit. After Disclosure, you yourself were in the news almost every day for two weeks straight. Now we don't get anything from the GBN but stuff about what's happening planet-side."

"That's because things are finally calmed down in orbit of Earth. Other worlds… well, let's just say that the UNSC is far from sitting idle. We've stepped up our presence in Pegasus and Ba'al's become the target of the ships still in the Milky Way. Now there's talk of getting the last line of City Ship, the colony establishing variant, built and placed on Mars. Apparently, when Sam told them that we could make Mars habitable, the people took it to heart. Now a large majority of you actually want Mars to be terraformed, and the UNSC's more likely to spend the money making Mars habitable than General O'Neill is to set up a colony light years away that will be attacked by our enemies and need its own fleet for protection which means more ships, which means more mining worlds, which means more ships to defend them as well… It's a vicious cycle that's avoided simply by having two habitable worlds in one system.

"If we terraform Mars, we get a new world rich in minerals to mine for the production of civilian goods, we get the colony everyone's asking for, we get to alleviate the stress of overpopulation on Earth, and we get to keep the new colony close enough to defend with the same ships that never leave orbit of Earth for more than a day or two at a time. However, the production of the Demeter-class City Ship would have to wait until after the Athena has been finished. It would probably be another year before we saw a self-sustaining colony established on Mars. That, and having never done it before, we're not even sure what to send. It'll be a learning process for us, so that makes Mars all the more appealing. Who knows, maybe we'll get around to terraforming Mercury and Venus as well."

"We can do that?" Bregman asked skeptically. "Mercury is tidally locked with the sun, isn't? That means there's one side that's exposed to the daylight twenty-four seven. Even that argument is invalid since days on other worlds are different from days on Earth. I find it hard to believe that you could build a colony on a planet that's either always day or always night."

"We once found a device on a planet that had drifted too close to its star. The increased amount of solar radiation was lethal the people who lived there, so the Goa'uld who were mining the world created a device that served as an artificial ozone layer over a set area between two emitters. We can replicate that technology on both a larger and more effective scale to wrap all of Mercury in an ozone layer powerful enough to block the sun then pump the planet full of flash-forged oxygen, nitrogen, and everything else that life needs to evolve on a planet. Then we start creating oceans, planting trees… Actually, there's another step before all that. Before we start terraforming the surface, we'd probably slam an asteroid into the planet at a specifically calculated speed, angle, direction, and of a certain mass. The impact would, in theory and if done right, impart enough momentum to Mercury to cause it to spin faster. I won't even pretend to understand the science behind it though, so be sure to ask Sam about it when you interview her. Long story short, we'd essentially be playing God. You want to know how the Christian God created the world in seven days?" Daniel asked with a devious smirk. "We'll show you."

"In a time-lapse, of course," Bregman half-asked.

"Oh yes, definitely a time-lapse!" Daniel agreed. "What I understand of the process would take over a year in normal time, but, if the project is automated and the planet is locked in a time-dilation field, we could do it in seven days our-time, but inside of the field decades can pass in seconds."

"That's a scary thought," Bregman mumbled as he flipped through his notes. "Okay…" Bregman said then cleared his throat, a clear sign that they were continuing. "There have been complaints coming in from all over the world about living conditions, the price of living, minimum wage, gas prices… all of it's being written in letters and mailed to the UNSC Headquarters in the City Factory. Why is that?"

"Because people don't yet understand the structure of things post-disclosure. The UNSC is the United Nations Space Command. It's a global military power composed of soldiers from every country on Earth. It's not a political power. The UNSC has no say in political matters. The UEG is the United Earth Governments. They're the ones you take your complaints to, but the UEG has no control over things like living conditions, the price of living, minimum wage, or gas prices. Just like the governments of the countries you live in have never had control over gas prices, neither does the UEG. Whichever company you buy your products from has the final say in how much to charge you for those goods. The UEG has no power over the global economy. Things like minimum wage are still controlled by the local governments. If you have a complaint in those areas, talk to your Mayor, then your Governor, then your Congressman if things still aren't resolved. We have no say over your lives because the UEG was formed by the governments that already existed.

"It's like the UN. When the UN was created, they didn't go out, buy a stretch of land, stick down a flag and declare this as UN territory. The UEG is the same way, but on a larger scale. We, as a people, are still too divided for a single governing body to exist as the sole political power on Earth. How many of you know the name of your local representative to the UEG Congress? How many of you voted that person into office? I'll tell you now that Richard Woolsey, the American representative to the UEG got his job because he was our representative in the IOA before it was disbanded. Like the other countries, we simply promoted people into the positions because order had to be established in a post-disclosure world. I believe it's the year after next that we start opening the poles to elect officials into the UEG Congress.

"It wasn't a power play," Daniel quickly added. "Believe me it wasn't, it was just a decision made to assure that Earth didn't collapse into a state of chaos and rioting. No one's trying to undermine your freedom or your rights, but when we did disclosure, we did it on the back of an invasion that saw… I think the final figure was just shy of two-hundred-fifty-thousand people dead in one day. People were understandably angry and we waited a whole week to tell you what was going on."

"Sorry to interrupt, but this is actually getting into another topic I want to address later when I do the part on the Battle for Earth," Bregman said as he flipped to another page. "We'll go back to that, but not today. I need to get Doctor Weir's opinion first because I have a feeling she'll explain it better." Bregman then looked up and added, "No offense, but she's been doing public relations longer than you have."

"Very true," Daniel admitted with a light laugh. "She's more politically active than I've ever been."

"So," Bregman said in a serious, all-business tone. "Zero-Week."

That was all the words to the question. Daniel needed nothing else to know what he meant. Zero-Week were the days leading up to and immediately following the Battle for Earth. At the SGC, they had called it 'Hell Week' for very obvious reasons.

"I know how scary that week was," Daniel admitted with a slight hitch in his tone. "You watched from the surface as ships did battle in orbit with no clue as to what was going on. I was at the heart of a military facility watching our ships take on a numerically superior force I knew to be extremely powerful, watching as bodies were blown out of hull breaches when shields were overloaded, trying not to panic when the Gaia lost its shields or when the Apollo lost its hangar bay… Watching the Odyssey stand still to intercept those beams was the longest five seconds of my life.

"It was like the world had just stopped spinning, time had stopped moving. I know the crew of the Odyssey rather well. I'll admit that I was shamelessly praying, begging even, to every God I know by name no matter which religion they belonged to, the Greek Pantheon included, that we made it out alive. I'll even admit I prayed for my friends specifically over the planet as a whole. I sat with the daughter of a coworker we lost a few years back, trying to comfort her as she held it all in watching people die while I was falling apart right beside her. It was horrible," Daniel said, his voice actually quivering and his eyes threatening to leak tears.

"Cut," Bregman ordered. The light on the camera immediately went off and he handed Daniel a handkerchief. "That's what I was hoping for," he said kindly. "Humanizing the people who knew so that they don't seem so alien." After giving Daniel a moment to collect himself, he asked, "How is Cassie?"

"I spoke to her last week. She's doing better now that she doesn't have to lie to everyone about who she is," Daniel replied.

"Good," Bregman said with a smile. "She's a good kid."

"She is," Daniel agreed with a nod.

"Whenever you're ready, Doctor Jackson."

With a deep breath and a nod, Daniel continued.

"It's one thing to know the planet was at risk. It's another thing to watch the people you have stood next to for ten years dying while you sit there, watching, helpless to stop the slaughter. You have no idea what that week was. The Ori weren't just an extragalactic invader, they were dominating our galaxy. The Free Jaffa Nation sent an entire fleet to the Supergate when it first activated, the Lucian Alliance, our sworn enemy, even sent ships, and we sent two of our own. There were over twenty ships composing that fleet. Twenty! Only two of them survived, and both were so badly damaged that the Alliance Ha'tak wasn't worth salvaging and was destroyed by their own reinforcements. I was aboard the Korolev when it went down.

"I survived by jumping into the ring platform and I ended up aboard an Ori ship surrounded by the enemy. Colonel Mitchell, who was a Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of SG-1 and now serves as the CO of the Achilles, he made it out in a fighter as the 302 bay exploded around him. I've been close to dying before, hell I have died before… twice, actually…" Daniel trailed off with a shake of his head. "Leave that part out. I don't need people asking me questions about it."

"Okay," Bregman said with a nod.

"I've been close to dying before, but that day was bad. With four ships, the Ori destroyed the largest fleet ever assembled by Earth and her allies. With four ships, the Ori began their conquest of the galaxy and nothing could stand before them without falling over and burning to ash. The Jaffa had weapons that couldn't touch their shields, and shields that couldn't withstand their weapons. We were only slightly better off. Our shields could handle the Ori's weapons, but our own weapons were weaker and less effective than the Jaffa's. The Ori were like the bubonic plague in that they seemed insurmountable. Then the Asgard gave their lives to provide us with a future we otherwise wouldn't have had. With the technology they gave us, we held the line… barely."

"You've lost a lot of people over the years, haven't you?"

Daniel nodded sadly in reply.

*UEG Clausus Cursor (Guest Quarters) [two hours later]*

"Numbers lie," Doctor Jackson began with a sad smile. "Numbers cover over complicated feelings and confusing situations. People try to use numbers to describe things that should not be quantified. It reminds me of one of Joseph Stalin's quotes. I'm sure I'm paraphrasing here, but he said, 'One death is a tragedy; a million is just a statistic.' It's a horrible thing to say, but when it comes to data visualization and analysis, it's true a lot of the time. We have a huge dataset and we have to extract information from it. In the process though, we forget that every one of those numbers has real non-numeric value to it. There are emotions and feelings."

The playback paused as Bregman made more notes on the screen. "We'll do this as a voice over with the released pictures of the dead from the Battle for Earth with numbers and charts showing the losses popping up in the background. Then we switch over to the interview with Miss… what was her name?"

"Rawlinson," James provided.

"Right. Put her in talking about how her daughter used to love climbing trees and her childhood memories," Bregman continued.

"Keep the numbers going?" Wickenhouse asked.

"Yes," Bregman replied. "We want to remind the people that these aren't just numbers. They were people… and their deaths left behind loved ones. Then switch it over to the alien that's always calling us 'organics' instead of 'Humans.' Pick up with his line…" Bregman checked his notes, "'Life is complex'."

"You mean the AI in the organic body?" Rundell asked with a roll of his eyes.

"The one with the obvious crush on Carter that only she can't see?" James countered with a smirk.

"Yes, that one," Bregman replied, ignoring their comments.

The playback picked up again as the edits were made, the crying face of the grieving mother brave enough to be on camera being replaced by an alien that broke the laws of morality in some opinions.

"Life is complex, Mister Bregman," the alien said in response to Bregman's question, his tone full of awe. "You evolved from the primordial muck of a planet covered in apex predators. Your race should've been eaten alive by the 'bigger fish,' but, instead, you learned to outsmart everything that could outrun or out fight you."

"Hold on," Bregman said with a disappointed shake of his head. "I know he doesn't mean it, but it sounds like he's talking down on Humans. Let's just avoid the incident before it can be made and cut that. Start with 'Life is complex' then jump to the part where he says that part about 'being alive because you think it'."

"When he says the Human definition of life is flawed?" James asked.

"No, we should put that in after his spiel on 'I think therefore I am.' It'll flow better," Rundell suggested.

"I agree," Bregman nodded approvingly.

"Okay…" Wickenhouse mused as he edited the tape. "Here…"

"Life is complex, Mister Bregman," the alien said again, his tone still the same because, you know, recordings. The scene hitched only slightly as the alien went from leaning in on Bregman full of excitement to sitting back slightly with a spark in his eyes and a chest rumbling laugh. "You Humans have a saying. 'I think therefore I am.' I have lived my entire life inside of a computer, yes, but am I any less alive because of it? I think, I feel, I get scared, I panic, I worry, I cry…" a shake of a head that began at the end of once scene and served to transition to another. "The Human definition of life is flawed."

"How so?" Bregman asked in the recording.

"I know it's not the way these things go, but…" the alien began again, the recording stopping as Bregman shook his head.

"Skip the first half of that sentence. No one cares that this isn't how things are normally done. Just go to the question," Bregman ordered.

"How so?" Bregman asked in the recording as the editing was done.

"Let me ask you something, Mister Bregman. What is your definition of life?"

"Now skip the part where I say, 'No one cares about my definition of life' and just put in my answer to his question."

"Life is… living, breathing. Experiencing the world. It's… growing, learning… life is life."

"The second answer I give him to the question," Bregman amended with a huff.

"Let me ask you something, Mister Bregman. What is your definition of life?"

A minor hitch as the editing removed his awkward answer.

"Life is growing old, learning all you can, working as hard as you can, withering… dying."

"Another question if you'll indulge me a moment longer. Am I alive, Mister Bregman?"

"I still can't believe he asked you that," Rundell commented.

"Talk about dancing in a minefield," James agreed.

"You have a body, yes," Bregman replied in the recording.

"Okay," Bregman said in real life, "skip that part. Not to cover my ass, but because it's covered later. Go to… 'I was born in a computer'."

"Another question if you'll indulge me a moment longer. Am I alive, Mister Bregman?" Another slight hitch as the stream of images and sounds was clipped. They'd fix that later. "I was conceptualized by a woman and a man who are, equivocally to Human society, 'married,' but I was born in a computer and lived with a hologram as my only way of letting people see my face for longer than you can comprehend. Am I any less alive? I have a body now, yes, but before then was I any less alive than I am now? Is not the ship I controlled a body?"

"It has no flesh," Bregman replied in a serious tone.

"Cylon ships do," the alien replied.

"Cut in and put an image of the Cylon Baseship into the corner there," Bregman ordered. "Make sure it's a picture with the fleshy parts showing, then cut to the comment about Webster's dictionary, then go back to this."

"I have a body now, yes, but before then was I any less than I am now? Is not the ship I controlled a body?"

"It has no flesh."

"Cylon ships do." A hitch in the recording. "According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of life is: The ability to grow, change, etc., that separates plants and animals from things like water or rocks." Hitch. "By your own definition a Wraith Hiveship is alive. I won't argue the point because I agree that it is. It regrows lost sections and heals battle damage, but…" Hitch. "Are they more alive than I am because of it? A Cylon Baseship has a hybrid hooked into it which is like having your organic mind connected to a computer game; a fully immersive virtual world. The differences between me and a Cylon hybrid, however, are unique. A Cylon hybrid is a semi-organic being connected to a semi-organic ship. I'm a fully artificial construct with organic memories, emotions, and an organic personality. My body was made of hyper-compressed layers of ablative armor, but was I less alive than a Hiveship or Baseship because of it? My mind is more evolved than any Cylon in existence and that includes their ships. Why does a mindless ship get to be 'alive' and I don't? Because of something as simple as organic flesh?"

"Okay, okay, cut the part that says 'my mind is more evolved than any Cylon,' then play it back from Doctor Jackson talking about numbers. I wanna check the flow," Bregman ordered.

"So," Bregman said in a serious, all-business tone. "Zero-week."

"I know how scary that week was," Daniel admitted and Bregman could see the pain in his eyes in the recording. "You watched from the surface as ships did battle in orbit with no clue as to what was going on. I was at the heart of a military facility watching our ships take on a numerically superior force I knew to be extremely powerful, watching as bodies were blown out of hull breaches when shields were overloaded, trying not to panic when the Gaia lost its shields or when the Apollo lost its hangar bay… Watching the Odyssey stand still to intercept those beams was the longest five seconds of my life.

"It was like the world had just stopped spinning, time had stopped moving. I know the crew of the Odyssey rather well. I'll admit that I was shamelessly praying, begging even, to every God I know by name no matter which religion they belonged to, the Greek Pantheon included, that we made it out alive. I'll even admit I prayed for my friends specifically over the planet as a whole. I sat with the daughter of a coworker we lost a few years back, trying to comfort her as she held it all in watching people die while I was falling apart right beside her. It was horrible," Daniel said, his voice shaky and eyes on the verge of tears.

Then a hitch.

"It's one thing to know the planet was at risk. It's another thing when it's the people you have stood next to for ten years dying while you sit there, watching, helpless to stop the slaughter. You have no idea what that week was. The Ori weren't just an extragalactic invader, they were dominating our galaxy. The Free Jaffa Nation sent an entire fleet to the Supergate when it first activated, the Lucian Alliance, our sworn enemy, even sent ships, and we sent two of our own. There were over twenty ships composing that fleet. Twenty! Only two of them survived, and both were so badly damaged that the Alliance Ha'tak wasn't worth salvaging and was destroyed by their own reinforcements. I was aboard the Korolev when it went down.

"I survived by jumping into the ring platform as the ship blew up around me and I ended up aboard an Ori ship surrounded by the enemy. Colonel Mitchell, who was a Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of SG-1 at the time and now serves as the CO of the Achilles, he made it out in a fighter as the 302 bay exploded around him. I've been close to dying before, but that day was bad. With four ships, the Ori destroyed the largest fleet ever assembled by Earth and her allies. With four ships, the Ori began their conquest of the galaxy and nothing could stand before them without falling over and burning to ash. The Jaffa had weapons that couldn't touch their shields, and shields that couldn't withstand their weapons. We were only slightly better off. Our shields could handle the Ori's weapons, but our own weapons were weaker and less effective than the Jaffa's. The Ori were like the bubonic plague in that they seemed insurmountable. Then the Asgard gave their lives and provided us with a future we otherwise wouldn't have had. With the technology they gave us, we held the line… barely."

"You've lost a lot of people over the years, haven't you?"

Daniel nodded sadly in reply and Bregman, for the first time, heard the pain in his own voice as he asked that question.

"Numbers lie," Doctor Jackson began with a sad smile. "Numbers cover over complicated feelings and confusing situations. People try to use numbers to describe things that should not be quantified. It reminds me of one of Joseph Stalin's quotes. I'm sure I'm paraphrasing here, but he said, 'One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is just a statistic'." The video of Daniel sitting there looking depressed switched over to charts, graphs, and numbers scrolling across the screen. For now, they were blank. They'd add the actual numbers later. "It's a horrible thing to say, but when it comes to data visualization and analysis, it's true a lot of the time. We have a huge dataset and we have to extract information from it. In the process though, we forget that every one of those numbers has real non-numeric value to it. There are emotions and feelings."

Here the dead soldiers they had images of would be displayed, but, for now, it was a blank screen with a voice speaking from it.

"My daughter, Olivia, she used to spend all day climbing trees. I'd look outside and she'd be at the top of the tallest branch lounged back reading a book like being three stories off of the ground was nothing to worry about," the grieving mother said, her tone happy and sad at the same time. "When she said she was going to join the Air Force, it didn't even surprise me. She loved heights. Flying just made sense. She came home from Basic bouncing off the walls talking about jumping out of airplanes during Tech School. She was a Warrior Airman, a Pararescue Jumper. When Haiti got hit by the earthquake, they called her. I came home from work and she had her bags packed. She told me, 'Momma, I'm going to help the people in Haiti get out. We're taking them supplies and helping them evacuate.'

"I had seen the news, we all had. The whole place was a disaster zone. There were no runways or docks left intact enough to use, that's why they were so desperate. I was so worried. They didn't have any clean water, they were starving, and she was just going to go over there and help like it wasn't anything to worry about? I spent the first few nights sleepless. Then I got a call from her. She was tired, but she was happy. She told me about all the good they were doing, all the people she'd helped. I was so proud of her. When she came back, she told me she wanted to go into space."

"And she ended up with the SGC?" Bregman asked.

"Yes, but I didn't know then what I know now. She told me she had seen the stars. I never thought she meant that she had been on a ship built by Earth and flown to another planet. I never thought my daughter would be walking through wormholes to fight terrorists on other worlds. I never thought she'd die in a battle over Earth trying to keep aliens from killing everyone I've ever known."

"If you did know then what you know now, would you talk her out of it?"

"No," Misses Rawlinson sobbed. "She was happy. Every time I saw her, she was glowing. She was proud of what she was doing. She enjoyed her work. She had made friends with the people she worked with. She fell in love… watched him die… She was my little girl, but she was her own woman. Her choices were her own. I wouldn't take that happiness away from her. I know she died doing what she thought was right. That's all a parent can ask for."

"Life is complex, Mister Bregman. You Humans have a saying. 'I think therefore I am.' I have lived my entire life inside of a computer, yes, but am I any less alive because of it? I think, I feel. I get scared, I panic, I worry, I cry… The Human definition of life is flawed."

"How so?"

"Let me ask you something, Mister Bregman. What is your definition of life?"

"Life is growing old, learning all you can, working as hard as you can, withering… dying."

"Another question if you'll indulge me a moment longer. Am I alive, Mister Bregman? I was conceptualized by a man and woman who are, equivocally to Human society, 'married,' but I was born in a computer and lived with a hologram as my only way of letting people see my face for longer than you can comprehend. Am I any less alive? I have a body now, yes, but before then was I any less alive than I am now? Is not the ship I controlled a body?"

"It has no flesh."

"Cylon ships do."

For now, there was a black square in the corner of the screen where the picture of the guts of a Baseship would go later.

"According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of life is: The ability to grow, change, etc., that separates plants and animals from things like water or rocks.' By your own definition a Wraith Hiveship is alive. I won't argue the point because I agree that it is. It regrows lost sections of its hull and heals battle damage, but are they more alive than I am because of it? A Cylon Baseship has a hybrid hooked into it which is like having your organic mind connected to a computer game; a fully immersive virtual world. The differences between me and a Cylon hybrid, however, are unique.

"A Cylon hybrid is a semi-organic being connected to a semi-organic ship. I'm a fully artificial construct with organic memories, emotions, and an organic personality. My body was made of hyper-compressed layers of ablative armor, but was I less alive than a Hiveship or Baseship because of it? Why does a mindless ship get to be 'alive' and I don't? Because of something as simple as organic flesh? The sacrifice of the Devastator was bloodless, yes, but it was not without loss. The AI aboard that ship was just as alive as I am, Mister Bregman…"

"Cut," Bregman said while applying pressure to the bridge of his nose. "Comments?"

"I lose the flow around the part where he says… 'A Cylon Baseship has a hybrid hooked into it.' After that, it's not about people not being numbers anymore, it's about him being alive," James provided.

"Thank you, I was wondering why that was bothering me," Bregman mused. "Keeping with the fact that people are numbers, cut the part with the AI at… well, let's just play it back slower and I'll tell you what I don't want." They went through it again and Bregman sighed. "This has to go somewhere else. It's good material, but not for this section. This is about dead people not being numbers, not AIs being alive. Cut all of that and switch it over from the AI to Doctor Jackson when he says… 'We survived the Battle for Earth.' That'll fit better."

"We survived the Battle for Earth, and, even then… not all of us did. We won by the skin of our teeth. If not for the Nex, which was still under the command of the Furlings during that battle, and the sacrifice it made, we would've lost more. Without the timely arrival of Atlantis, we would've lost the entire crew of the Gaia. There were a thousand souls aboard that ship when it lost its shield. They were one shot away from dying to the last. Without the unpredicted arrival of the Impolans and the twenty-three Motherships they personally destroyed… The skin of our teeth, Mister Bregman.

"That's better. Now we can play with that and get it ready. We still need to get Carter and O'Neill's sides of this," Bregman said with a satisfied nod.

"We should get Mitchell's too since he was part of SG-1," Wickenhouse suggested.

"If we can, we should try and get Teal'c to sit down and do an interview. He's been with the SGC for ten years, started the Jaffa rebellion… he's a legend if ever there was one," Rundell added.

"One thing at a time, boys. One thing at a time," Bregman assured them. "First, while we wait for General O'Neill, we're going to New Caprica to get an interview with… Colonel Ian Davidson, CO of the Odyssey. Then we go to Pegasus to meet General Steven Caldwell, Colonel Abe Ellis, and Doctor Elizabeth Weir who lead the Daedalus, Apollo, and Atlantis respectively. Once we've got them, we'll have everyone involved in the Battle for Earth, and we'll be able to start actually piecing this film together."

"I wonder where Carter went, anyway," Wickenhouse mused as he turned to look out the window in their editing room. In orbit of Earth, there was a rather stunning lack of a ten-kilometer warship.

"Probably classified," Rundell grumbled.

"Everything worth knowing is," Bregman agreed solemnly.

***Armstrong Nebula (Grissom System)***

**Notanban (Atmosphere)**

*FGN Isai (Combat Information Center)*

"Are you sure of this? Once we begin down this path, there will be no going back," Wy'H'ofacion observed.

"My insistence thus far has been that you allow me a shuttle and time to complete this task on my own. Your counter-insistence has been that I do not do this alone. My mind is set, Dokal. I am going with or without you," Sieon replied solemnly.

"I will not leave you alone with your suffering, Sieon. There are not many of us left, but those that remain shall stay together. We are with you," Wy'H'ofacion assured him. "Are the preparations complete?"

"They are," Ruk'lgarb, more commonly called 'Ruk,' replied from his position in the pilot's seat. "We will Transition in a blind spot in the galactic spy network as you wished. The AI shall not know we're gone, and the system we are to appear in is not habitable. That does not, however, mean that our arrival will go unnoticed."

"Begin," Wy'H'ofacion ordered.

"Thank you," Sieon said as the lights started to flicker erratically, the Isai's power core unable to sustain the output levels to run the whole ship while feeding power to the ship's new drive.

"Don't thank me yet," Dokal replied with a sad smile. His words were cut off by the whine of the generator reaching its peak output and the drive performing its purpose. As a blindingly bright pulse of white light consumed the Isai and all aboard, the ship punched through the trans-universal barrier and disappeared from the universe that housed the Furlings for fifty-million years. As much as this was the universe they were born in, the one they had just left was home. "Our work has only just begun," Dokal finished as the light receded.

***Armstrong Nebula (Gagarin System)***

**Rayingri (Orbit)**

*SSV Normandy (Combat Information Center)*

"Commander, we've got a ping," Joker, the Normandy's pilot, informed the Commander.

"What is it, Joker?" Shepard asked.

"It's an energy signature, Commander," the voice of one Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko replied. "Could be the Geth's main base. Even if it's not, anything powerful enough to be detected from another system warrants careful observation and the Normandy is the only stealth ship we have."

"That, and we're here so why not?" Joker added.

"Alright, Joker, set a course and deploy the stealth system as soon as we drop out of FTL. I'll forward a report to Admiral Hackett," Shepard replied.

"ETA; just under two hours," Joker confirmed.

'I wonder what we'll find this time,' Shepard mused.