A little record keeping: I've been sick for a while, and it affected me more that I imagined it would. Keping it simple, it took about three weeks to recover. It was a pain.

Flameraverm: The Shadows are powerful. As you read this chapter you'll see that the Shadows will re-evaluate their initial plans against the 'Children of the Asgard'.

The Shadows are unaware of Ancient technology. The Goa'uld suspect but have no proof one way or the other.

And by the way, in book II, Earth has nuked Caprica, Picon and Gemenon several times. This was no EMP, warning or whatever. It's the real deal. Earth has invaded the Colonies with intent to conquer by way of total subjugation by force of arms. 'Why' they are doing this is another story.

Roads Paved in Shadow

Book I

CHAPTER FOUR

Location; near border of Ashtorath space:

The lead Shadow battlecrab homing in on its invisible target. Of interest was that it wasn't any form of stealth that it had encountered before. It was completely undetectable to Shadow sensors making it effectively invisible, a very impressive feat for a young race. However, the young race's ship had one glaring fault that the telepath joined with the ship was exploiting. Something or a group of somethings were leaving a mental trail, a series of static echoes. Those mental echoes were very evident and as such, although sort ranged, could be tracked.

The black ship, its appendages fully extended, swept passed the suspected position of the target. The purplish white high-energy beam, if seen with the naked eye was bright enough to instantly blind anyone watching it.

Locking onto the 'static echoes' the beam hit the Terran warship across the port side in a downward slashing attack. It was a standard attack intended to slice the target in half. The living vessel, its operator and several Shadows were shocked that the vessel showed damaged but hadn't been rendered totally inoperative. The emergency analysis by the ship's organic brain corrected for the incredibly tough armor protecting and holding the ship together. The strength of the energy shield was higher than the standard shields characteristic of the locals. Quickly transmitting the results to its fellow crabs, it began its turn for another attack as its sister started its own attack run.

(())

"Captain," Chief engineer Clifford Highcliff yelled through HICOM. "Their beam weapon sliced into our armor right through our proximity shields. Two decks are opened to vacuum. I have shields closing off the gaps. The main hyperspace circuit burned out. Secondary systems are showing yellow. We lost two crystals. We're replacing them and will be ready in five minutes but we have warning lights across the boards."

"Understood. Hurry. Blakeslee, get a targeting solution on that ship with our plasma cannons and CIWS as the opportunity presents…"

"Solution locked!"

The small warship twisted violently as it barely avoiding another slashing beam attack from the second spider-like ship as it passed by. The captain watched. Absently, she wouldn't remotely describe the thing attacking them as a spider-like design. Her eyes, or rather her mind, refused to fully conceptualize what she was seeing. But she knew she wanted to kill it. She was well aware of the fact that her instinct to destroy this ship was against all of her training and sense of acceptance, but right now she could care less.

The Resolution was a dedicated Prometheus II stealth. The weapon's systems were designed primarily for defensive action, although it did have a rather impressive offensive system consisting of twin Gatling plasma cannon mounted above and below the ship. It also carried twelve peregrine II type six naquada enhanced nuclear missiles of two hundred megatons each. The shaped charges could overwhelm the shields of any normal Ha'tak. But the ship's greatest strength lay in its cloaking and stealth capabilities which apparently had failed spectacularly against these–whatever they were. She need to know how they were so effectively detected. Meanwhile…

"Fire!"

Locked onto the first ship, twin plasma fire raked the Shadow vessel and it visibly quivered. Insane alien screaming assaulted the crew of the Resolution as the second battlecrab began its second attack on the now visible target.

The first Shadow attacker screamed in surprise and more than in a medium amour of pain. Its black adapted armor was burned where the target had struck it. The strike was strong enough to have forced its way through the ship's protective energy and gravitational distortion fields. The pain lasted only an instant, but it was a valuable learning experience not to underestimate this target.

The ship pumped psychic energy into the human telepath connected to it. The intelligence used the merged young one's brain as the primary organic computer that accelerated response time and actions as well as allowed the ship to function more effectively. The race called the Shadows found that using the minds and bodies of the younger races was more efficient for the functioning of the vessels. An average organic tool could live for as long as five–six years before it needed to be replaced. The Shadow could interface with their own ships far more efficiently; however, the connections and disconnects were inconvenient and took time. It was also limiting and the aliens liked their freedom. Usually one Shadow captained one Shadow vessel no matter the size, but that was not the case here. The Shadows were a long, long way from home and were in the process of establish a dedicated colony in the heart of this new territory. More than a hundred were on each of the ships. The alien travelers were setting up operations and many of their kind were needed for the completion of the base. There was a lot to do before they could began implementing their plans in earnest.

A second later, everything was forgotten as the damage turning into unimagined pain. The target was still locked on firing accurately at a range that should have been improbable if not impossible. The thousands of small but powerful plasma bolts bored into the thick organic hull and into shocked Shadows. The screaming both mentally and physically overwhelming. The biological being merged with the Shadow vessel immediately burned out. The human male died with the smallest of sighs. The plasma continued striking something vital in the vessel's organs. Then there was more than just pain. Blackness began to close in on the Shadow and its terrified occupants. Black ichor began filling started filling the vast corridors of the ship as it broke apart.

Zynatha, the Shadow leader of the expedition felt the screams of her people and her children as they passed on. There was a flair of unimagined hatred and grief. Quickly, she suppressed her emotions away and focused on the defiant little ship. She discovered to her surprise that their work would be more difficult than first assumed. The slashing attack that should have sliced the small ship in half didn't have the desired effect. The ship was intact and returned fire and did something that should have been impossible for a younger race to achieve. The beams burned but the small pellets were also remarkably effective and they forced their way through the gravitic protection fields and penetrated self-repairing armor and one of her vessels and its occupants died. She screamed at the offensive vessel pouring out every bit of her psychic anger hatred, directing it towards the target in

order to cripple the crew.

A sister battlecrab slashed at the little ship once more, using full power but again it refused to fall apart and die. There was no doubt however that weapons fire had damaged it. The target's power generation was fluctuating The battlecrab turned for another attack, confident in its ability to destroy its target. A moment later it screamed in dismay as two small missiles moving faster than any ever seen before missed by a fraction before blowing up. The young sister was screaming in pain. Two of its spines were missing completely and three more were in ruins. The explosions had been impressive and was a grim reminder of the dangers of the small sip. Slashing attacks would take too long to destroy it.

Zynatha called for immediate re-enforcements. This target couldn't be allowed to live.

On the second vessel, the organ computer was screaming from sensory overload. The damage inflicted by the nukes was catastrophic to the ship and it was making itself known to its host. Like the other human, this male was a telepath however it was more powerful. This type of organic was preferable as they interfaced better with the artificial intelligence of the ship. However something unusual had occurred. The human became ill as it continually used its natural ability to track the target. Apparently the organics on the targeted ship were unusual. Their minds were unreadable. Further, the more the human telepath tried to scan the sicker he became. The psychic screams irritated the humans on the small spy ship but nothing more than that. That alone merited further study. The captain was tempted to incapacitate the ship use the remains of both ship and crew for study.

Reinforcements arrived within a minute. Another Shadow war crab, phased into normal space and instead of using a slashing attack it fired a sustained beam directly on the target. The strike lasted no more than two seconds but the quantum based gravitic disruptor blew out the already overstressed defense shield.

UCW Resolution

The Gatling plasma canons, the main offensive weapon of the Resolution was capable of firing four thousand plasma bolts per minute. The supporting Gatling rail guns, firing a mixture of naquada-trinium and the deadly naquada potassium rounds at four thousand rounds per minute were feared by most ships in the galaxy. Combined, those plasma and rail rounds could guarantee the destruction of just about any Ha'tak known. The Lucian Alliance was deathly afraid of confronting the Tau'ri, even more so than the dreaded Tollanians.

"Defense shields are gone," Blakeslee yelled over the din. "The deflection shield's at fifteen percent. That first hit was what hurt us badly."

"Status on the repair!" demanded Commander Alden.

"We can jump now!"

"Ma'am, three more of those things have just decloaked and they've locked onto us!

"Activate the drive; get us out of here!" grimaced Chandra. Her arm was broken at the elbow. The ship wasn't much better. Half the systems were blown. The cloak and stealth systems were offline, not that they were useful at this point. Weapons were still functional and were effective against those monster ships but they were effectively outnumbered in a crippled ship. A fifth of the crew was dead and their only chance was to escape. Earth needed to know about them and the danger they represented. "We are vacating this area. Commander," screamed Chandra as she tried to keep her mind clear. Her broken elbow was clouding her ability to think clearly. The ship rocked and continued to do so under a sustained beam strikes. "Our co-communications." Her voice was slurred and fading. "We have to warn…"

"We cannot, Captain," Talia Green yelled. The warning bells had changed. The engines were seconds from melting and the safeties were all but destroyed. "The system is inoperable. Warning anyone is impossible."

There is nothing we can do, were the last thoughts of Captain Idira Chandra as she fell into unconsciousness from the pain.

The wildly evading ship was struck another glancing blow from the second Shadow ship rushing towards them. To the shock of everyone human and Shadow, the double layered trinium hull buckled, but didn't rupture. The four remaining shadow vessels simultaneously fired on the besieged ship.

A hyperspace window opened and the Resolution was pulled into hyperspace in pieces as beams of enemy tried to again rake the ship before the window closed.

The remains of the Resolution were pulled into the safety of hyperspace. Under the strain and conditions of hyperspace the pieces began buckling. The naquada enhanced missiles added to the explosion leaving little remains other than irritated particles. Nothing remained of the ship and the fate of the United Coalition of Worlds Ship Resolution would not be known for several years. The ship would be marked down as 'unaccounted for, fate unknown, presumed destroyed in the line of duty'.

Morden, who never used his first name namely because he hated it, was worried because his masters were worried and he could feel their emotions coming at him in waves. One vessel had 'bled' to death and the second one was outright destroyed. An enormous number of Shadows were killed. A third wounded ship was, for a lack of a better word, bleeding all over space from injuries inflected by the Terran nuke. It's sister ship had extended grapples and connected to it and both had transitioned into jump space, followed by the other sister ship.

After the battle the Shadows were silent to him and all of their human servants with the possible exception of Anna. Weapons that had served them for so long had failed to easily bring the small Tau'ri vessel down. Like Morden everyone was assuming that the ship was of Tau'ri origin. Moments before the first ship attacked, a shield surrounded the Terran and effectively blocked the, what should have been, a killing blow. The shield wasn't their primary one but some sort of secondary field. Whatever it was, it stopped the quantum disruptor from killing the vessel. But the weapon had crippled it enough to allow all three vessels to destroy it. The second surprise was the Terran weapon's system was enough to destroy two Shadow vessels and cripple another one by itself in a one to one conflict.

His masters were well aware of the weapons capabilities of the local young races and were wary. The standard Ha'tak used plasma weapons and shielding that were very powerful but there were ways to get around that. Morden expected the masters were going to use the tried and true method of manipulating the locals into fight one another thereby weakening both sides. The stronger would prevail but greatly weakened. However something besides the deaths of over a hundred of his masters had disturbed them. The loss of so many because of a young race's power had never happened before.

Anna suddenly snapped her head towards him. The look on her face was intense, almost frightening. It was if the light refused to shine directly on her, a fact he knew to be true for anyone touched by shadow. "Our masters and their ships could not sense these Tau'ri," she said. Morden was confused by that comment. "They didn't respond to the screams as they should have. Their minds are static."

Morden had no idea what that meant. "The masters can't read them?" she shook her head and he looked at her stunned. "That's impossible."

"They're not human, not like us," she smirked at him. He immediately got the implication. Neither of them were fully human, not anymore. "They've not been touched by Vorlon or Shadow."

"We suspected this," one of his Shadow master said as it appeared next to him. The huge, dark insectoid spider-like alien tilted its head at Morden. Its eyes glowed with dark intelligence. "Things are different here,"it added cryptically."This place is perfect for our needs, but we realize certain additional pieces need to be positioned. Others must be removed before we to begin our experiment. The Asgard are gone but they have crippled our adversaries. This is perfect for our needs, but the Terrans are the adapted children of the Asgard. If it had not been for their static we would not have been aware them. This presents a problem and an opportunity we must think about. The Tau'ri are growing stronger and require weeding out before they mature."

Morden frowned. The ones who that needed to be weeded out was crystal clear. However, certain promises were made, certain gifts exchanged and his masters didn't reneged on their promises. "Can we keep our promise if we change the equation."

"You ask a most interesting question. The answer is no. The Terrans have proven themselves more dangerous than we have expected. They have killed ours and we will punish them. We will honor our word. He can have his revenge if he can take it. We will glean through the wreckage. He can have what's left."

Now it was Morden's turn to smile. The Terrans had shown his masters just how dangerous they were and that was their mistake, one that was going to have deadly consequences. No way would their client be allowed Asgard technology. They could have the scraps. His masters would not make the same mistake as the Vorlons had. The Terrans were about to become an endangered species. He could already feel the plans being made.

Three hours later as the Shadow ships phased back into normal space near their base of operations, a signal was given. Two small vessels took off and headed for the new home world of the Tok'ra.

Seven battered warships, the last survivors of a failed resistance, rendezvoused at the edge of what was once Minbari space. Each of the vessels carried leaders of the factions of the crushed military along with a few civilian family members fortunate enough to escape the ever tightening dragnet. Enemy forces were searching for them, but not out here, not right now. It was here, in this remote sector where they would have to decide their next and possibly last course of action.

"We don't have a have choice," the General said. He was haggard, injured, and tired. The months being stuck on a ship damaged had begun to take its toll. "None of the governments will take us in."

"So it comes down to either surrendering or taking a chance and try to breach the door," a retired senator slowly muttered. "Either way, it's suicide."

"That's not true. But only four ships will make it. Our other three are in no condition to make the journey."

"I know that," the General snapped. "We'll strip every bit of useful equipment we can from them, every scrap of food and atmosphere. We'll take ever last weapon we can stuff and make a run for it."

"It's guarded and our new shields may protect us when we travel through the door but not against the weapons emplacements. They'll cut us to pieces."

"Then we'll have to plan this carefully if we want to survive this. We don't have much time. We have to start now and my God have mercy on our souls if we don't."

Carrina III

Council member Rana of the Tok'ra considered himself a reasonable individual, however these last two weeks had given him considerable pause and he was in the process of reevaluating that opinion of himself. The simple decision whether to reestablish contact with the Tau'ri had turned into a headache of epic proportions. The contentious attitudes shown by both pro and con factions threatened to turn into a brawl. On one side was his faction, those who were in favor of once again working with the Tau'ri. His faction was in the minimal majority. Council member Kella's faction was in favor as well but wanted to move from their newly established world and find another secretive planet known only to the Tok'ra and not to the Earthers and their allies.

The Kella faction were skittish and had reason to be so. The Goa'uld were aware of the Tok'ra location but as it fell under the Protective Planets Treaty, they dare not attack or even approach unless they wished to feel the full wraith of the Tau'ri and the Ashtorath weren't prepared for that conflict at least not yet. Rana understood that fear because it was his fear as well. However, he felt that staying was worth the danger and his people needed some stability, something they hadn't had for thousands of years. Always the Tok'ra were on the run, looking behind their backs until the last three years. Staying in place was quite a shock and most of his people still had not fully adjusted to the new reality.

Turo lead a small group that were mostly afraid of the Tau'ri but were willing take a cautious step towards reconnecting. Rana could negotiate with them and had which was why they would officially contact the Tau'ri with their proposal in the next couple of days.

Beru and his faction were not pleased and very vocal despite the vote. Beru still insisted that it was a mistake and that it wasn't too late for his plan be enacted and that was why Rana knew he was about to develop another headache because an irate Tok'ra was about to try to force him to once again reconsider the plan that Rana was beginning to hate that much more.

"Beru, the decision has been made," Rana almost growled before the pest could utter a word.

"Decisions can be changed," the male countered. "My sources can make us independent of the Goa'uld and the Tau'ri. No longer will we have to hide or live under the boots of those more powerful than we. We fought against the Goa'uld because we had to and we survived despites hundreds of worlds falling into their grips or being destroyed. Then the Tau'ri came with their mindless blundering and destroyed a thousand years of preparation to make this galaxy a better place where all could be free. Now we face another threat, the Tau'ri Empire who have shown themselves to be worse than the Goa'uld ever were. How many worlds have they destroyed in the last fifteen years, five, six? What was the war they participated in with Asgard? Why did the Asgard give them their technology? What happened to the Asgard, are they dead as the Tau'ri claimed or were the Tau'ri somehow responsible for their deaths? What will the Tau'ri do with that technology? Will they enslave the galaxy while we hide under their supposed benevolent gaze? How long will it take before they develop this technology and become what the Goa'uld only dreamed of? What other secrets are they hiding? We need answers to this questions. No, we need to protect ourselves from the monsters pretending to be our friends."

"Do you believe that the Tau'ri are that dangerous?"

"I believe that they will be and we must prepare for this inevitability. They've defeated the Goa'uld, the replicators and the Wraith. We don't even know how they defeated the Wraith. We only have rumors that the Tau'ri used some huge ship with weapons we've never seen before? How did they defeat Anubis' war fleet? How did they find the resources to build the three so-called Aurora class ships in so short a time? No, these humans are dangerous and have to many secrets, secrets that we must find out and neutralize before we can dare to trust them."

Rana had literally sat down as Beru continued. The man had some very good points. The Earth people had some very important secrets and they were keeping them close to their chests. "Beru, I concede that you have some important points. But we have isolated ourselves from the Tau'ri and some of those questions that plague you would have been answered if we were in contact with them. Our isolation from them has denied us information as well as a valuable ally. But you are wrong, the Tau'ri are not the threat you think them to be to us. Is the possibility there? I cannot deny this. But your way is just as deadly a choice. You wish us to trust people we do not know to give us technologies and weapons. In my mind, it appears to be a trap. You said it. They would give us gifts to resist the Tau'ri. I think your friends want us to fight the Tau'ri, not resist them. Therefore, I have denied your suggestions. I want to know what they want any you have not provided an answer that I feel comfortable with. So, I nor my fellow council members will change our decision. I am sorry Beru, but you must accept your lost in this matter. It is done."

"You are a fool."

"In some ways, we all are," he admitted. "But it still won't change my decision."

"Then you and the Councilors doom us to the predations of the Tau'ri!"

Without another word, Beru stalked out of the chamber.

Inside his chambers, Beru collapsed onto his bed in utter exhaustion and despair He wanted to scream but he couldn't and he despaired. He wasn't his own anymore. His host Kand, was lost having went catatonic in the first few hours of the battle. Even if the Tok'ra could have won the battle in the beginning, the damage may have been too much. As it was now, only Beru existed. He felt a stab of true regret but there was nothing he could do about it now. He was in complete control of this body as long as he remained inside. But something had taken the symbiote over.

Mister Morden had done something, injected him, gave his tainted food or drink… he wasn't sure. But what he was sure of was that something began to grow within his body within hours after his last meeting with Morden. It was subtle and he didn't notice until tiny neural tendrils inserted themselves into the Tok'ra s snake-like body. The parasite latched on and fought the symbiote for control of the body. The battle was intense and savage, with Kand being the first causality. Beru fought back and near the end even attempted suicide but it was too late. The Controller had grown too quickly using Kand's body as a nutrient source. Tens of thousands of neural fibers had infiltrated every part of Kand's brain and Beru's body. Now, it controlled the symbiote and the body it was in and Beru could do nothing. All he could think of was the horror that Goa'uld victims must feel when they lost control of their bodies forever. He was trapped and forced to do the biding of another creature, a parasite more powerful than he could imagine.

Now, that controller parasite was forcing him to inactivate the security protecting his home so that they could enter and exterminate his people and he could do nothing about it except follow orders. The warriors of darkness were coming and he would be the one who allowed them entry. He, the ultimate traitor would be forced to watch while his people were slaughtered. If he could have cried he would have.

But of course, he couldn't.