2146 October 27 1997 [Local Calendar]

P8X-987

Milky Way Galaxy

Major Smith was standing in front of the active Stargate waiting for the incoming investigation team. He was initially surprised when he was informed that Commander Drake, a man who had not only rescued Dr. Jackson, and had been working with Captain Carter, but had also prevented a Goa'uld take over of the SGC, was a suspect in the investigation of the disappearance of the Goa'uld in question. Now a new oversight organization had decided to investigate the matter and as a result there was now a four man team from the NID with a one man escort from the CID were coming to interview his team.

The first man stepped through the gate, wearing dress blues with the spread wings of a Colonel on his shoulders. Smith hid a smirk knowing how fucked the glossy dress shoes would be. As the second pair of glossy shoes stepped out of the event horizon a crackle came from the radio in his ear.

"SG-7, SG-7, this is Commander Drake. Be advised that you have an imminent Biological or Chemical attack inbound. Ground zero will be approximately 3 kilometers north-northwest of the Stargate, touchdown will occur in…" there was a brief delay as he seemed to check something. "Three minutes and 43 seconds, I say again three-four-zero. I have no idea if it'll work but your best bet is to get into MOPP four, full hazmat. Halt all outbound Gate activity, we don't want whatever this is to get through to Earth. General Hammond, if the Gate is currently open from your end I recommend closing the iris and waiting 72 hours before sending any personnel through, subject to environmental change on this side. I don't think that I am currently able to receive any signals, but I am praying for you all. Drake, Out."

Before the message had even switched to the General, Smith was rushing the three men to the observatory. When the Colonel tried to ask what was going on, he was told in the tones of a Drill Sergeant to keep running if he wanted to live.

Smith hit his radio. "Major Smith incoming, I have three additional personnel, have the extra MOPP suits ready when we get there!" Listening to the quick affirmative, he drove the pad of his boot-covered feet into the muddy path, moving at his best sprint.

As the distance to the Observatory dropped below 100 meters the four running men were nearly bulled over by two consecutive pressure waves as the delivery mechanism for this bio-chemical attack broke into the atmosphere going several times the speed of sound.

Major Smith opened the door and pushed the two civilian suited men through the door and into the waiting arms of his MOPP gear carrying team at the moment of impact. Smith and the Colonel in dress blues had to hold onto each other for stability before they both simultaneously attempted to push the other into the Observatory, only succeeding in looking ridiculous.

"Major, as much as I would like to rib you over your choice of dance partner," the one member of his team that was completely unimpeded by another human said sardonically before grabbing the Colonel and forcefully shoving his head into the presented protective equipment. "Get your ass into your own gear!"

He took a long step to the side where he saw his gear and quickly started pulling on the full body suit. "What's the time?" He asked, getting his right arm into the sleeve.

"20 seconds!" Said another member of his team, taping the flaps of the MOPP suit on one of the civilians down.

"What in the hell is going on?" The Colonel asked, finally getting the moment to ask a question without running.

"Commander Drake gave us a warning of a biological or chemical attack inbound." His helper said before checking his watch. "Brace!"

All of the military personnel crouched slightly to absorb any shock through their legs while the civilians grabbed onto the door frame for support. A moment later there were two brief impacts that shook through the ground.

I stand in the Hatak's hangar, my message having just been sent. All I can do now is pray that they got the message in time and carry on with my mission. I take a breath to center myself before refocusing on the task at hand. "Cortana, how's the takeover of the system working?"

"I've almost figured out the system structure, once that's done I'll be ready to assert complete control over the ship." The voice of the A.I. said from behind me. Turning, I see a terminal where Kerrigan was attempting to open the bay door while the Chief watched the door behind us. "As it stands, I am in control of comms, life support, transportation systems, and…" she trailed off as the massive blast door at the end of the cavernous room made a chunking sound immediately followed by the sound of metal sliding across metal. "Door controls." She finished smugly.

"Excellent, get six in here." I order while I pull up my bounty tracker and overlay it with the wireframe model of the ship. "Cortana, lock down this compartment," I say, pointing at a smallish room where one of my targets is. "And…" I say moving to gesture to the other target to find it moving. "Where does this corridor lead?" I ask, pointing towards the other target closer to the upper middle of the ship.

"That particular corridor connects the bridge to what appears to be a tertiary hangar; it has one ship that is FTL capable."

"Lock down the hangar and especially the hallway. Once those are secured, vent the atmosphere from the rest of the ship, everything except the secured compartments." I say, watching my strike team exit the pelican before the armored form of Six steps off and makes her way towards us. "Oh and before I forget, cut all power to the locked down corridor and seal it completely. Nirti is smart enough to attempt to escape, I refuse to give her any chance to."

I feel a shudder run through the ship momentarily before I hear the sound of air being removed from the bay. Turning back to my team I quickly decide how to divide everything up. Before I can speak though I pause and attempt to facepalm only to be met by the front of my helmet. Pointing to four of the marines I motion them over to a wall, opening the portal to my pocket dimension I motion to one of the privates. "Head on back, get me four companies of men and have them come back through to sweep the ship. You three…" I say, gesturing to the other men. "Are the security for the portal and pelican. Hold position here." Receiving salutes from the men, I motion for them to carry on before moving back towards everyone else.

"Alright, you four…" I say, indicating one of the two remaining teams. "Go with the Chief and Six, head to the brig and secure the secondary HVT." Getting a salute from them, the six person team start walking away guided by Cortana. Moving my finger to the last team that stood waiting for orders, I obliged them. "And lastly, you guys will accompany Kerrigan and I on our way to the bridge. Let's go."

By the time I had finished giving orders, Cortana's task had been completed and there was no longer any air aboard the ship making the trip to the peltac (Goa'uld for bridge) rather pleasant… aside from the dead bodies.

Arriving at the peltac I'm not surprised to find the bodies of half a dozen Jaffa scattered around the duty stations. Turning to my companions I motioned the marines forward. "For the time being just move the bodies out of the room, we'll be back in a minute." I ordered, beckoning for Kerrigan to follow me as I walked out of a different door.

Within a minute I came to a sealed blast door. Finding that the portion of the corridor that I'm in is clear of bodies I activate my radio. "Cortana, seal my current compartment and repressurize it." Before too long the hissing of air being sucked into the vacuum ended and the pressure was equalized. "On my mark unseal the bulkhead."

"3"

"2"

"1"

"Mark!"

At my signal the door shifted open and two orange bolts of plasma shot past us as Kerrigan fired a single shot and I fired a three round burst, each taking down a Jaffa. There was now only one Jaffa remaining, on his brow was the golden symbol of his god, an open reversed B with a small crescent on the line. Behind him stood a woman who while beautiful had her face twisted in anger.

"Jaffa, kree!" She shouted at her prime, pointing imperiously at us.

He fired a single shot that splashed across my shields to the amazed horror of Nirrti even as Kerrigan sent another round through the first prime's skull. I fired a burst into the leg of the Goa'uld before looking at my companion. "Pin her to the wall for now."

As I stepped forward two things happened, first the woman was pressed against the wall telekinetically at the same time I made a purchase from the catalog.

Treasure Hoard -20

And with that purchased I stoop down and swipe up a drop of the blood that had fallen to the ground while simultaneously pulling off my helmet with my other hand. I paused for a moment, looking at the red fluid on the finger of my glove before I resigned myself to it and licked it up. Ignoring the slight gag from Kerrigan behind me I quickly donned my helmet again to wait.

"What is the meaning of this?!" The false god demanded. "You know not who you are dealing with, human." She spat the last word like an insult.

"Oh I am well aware of what I am doing." I said leaning against the wall opposite of the irate parasite. "My main question is: given your research into Hok'tar, why don't you have any countermeasures against more advanced humans?" I asked her with a grin.

"Lowly insects know better than to do anything to a God, why would I concern myself with them?" She asked smugly, as though she was in complete control of the situation.

At that moment the PA system came to life and Cortana's voice spoke for all to hear. "She had set a silent self-destruct to go off in the next couple of minutes, but since you have me it's been disabled."

The smug expression of mutually assured destruction on Nirrti's face fell to one of fear.

"Now tell me, oh powerful goddess, which planet holds your Gene Resequencing device?" I ask leaning towards her while allowing my Draconic presence to wash over her, causing even the symbiote inside the human body to squirm with the knowledge that there was an apex predator nearby.

"W- what are you?" She asks in the smallest voice I've heard to date.

"I suppose you could call me a Longinus, one who kills gods." I respond after a moment of thought, causing another look of panic. "Now, while I'm sure that I could just get the information from your ship's database, it'd save me and my people a whole lot of time if you just answered the question."

Over the course of the next three and a half minutes the Goa'uld refused to answer, and I could see the beginnings of some small amount of strain in my companions' stance. "Well, fun chat, but I really can't say that I enjoyed it or that I'm going to miss you." I say as I feel the connection fall into place. "Buh-bye." Is the only fair well the bitchy butcher gets as I mentally sell her to the company… or the Archdeity… or whatever poor shmuck he has doing my paperwork.

Nirrti (Stargate) Captured 12

Nirrti (Stargate) Sold 8

Wait, that's market price, the Archdeities boon didn't kick in. What the flying fuck? "Cortana, is the ship secured yet?" I ask the air, deciding that it's a better choice to finish dealing with my current situation and then figure out what kind of shenanigans is happening with my boon.

"Not quite, it is a larger ship after all. That being said, the only movement I'm detecting corresponds with each of the teams sweeping everything, section by section."

"What's the situation with the secondary target?" I ask as Sarah and I turn and begin our way to the Peltac.

"She's secured, however it appears that she was entirely aware of what might have happened to her and what did happen to her parents. They were completely aware and conscious during their descent into the planets atmosphere and therefore likely died a very painful death due to the biological weapon Nirrti dosed them with. I recommend taking her back to the pocket dimension, there are a few couples or single parents from the previous jump that lost their children to the disease and might be willing to take her in as a foster child or even possibly adopt her, she's not the only child without parents that we now have in our custody." She finishes as Sarah and I enter the now cleared and secured Peltac.

"Do it." I order, walking over to the main terminal. Placing my hand into the strange station yields no result so I turn back to the rest of the room and fold my arms. "Also, are there any planets in the ships database with any mention of Hok'tar attached to them?"

There was a flicker of light to my left before the holographic image of Cortana came into view. "One moment." She said, pulling up some windows and swiping through them, entirely for our benefit. 15 seconds after she started she finally displayed a set of six planetary coordinates, each of which had the relevant sections of text highlighting on one side in Goa'uld and on the other in English. "It appears that the experiments were taking place on these worlds."

Looking over the descriptions of the experiments taking place on each planet only one truly grabs my attention. While the other five all have decades of research notes, not all of the data just the cliff notes, the second to last entry talks about forced rapid cellular evolution causing a semi-stable set of test subjects. Tapping on the coordinates I look at the A.I. "This is the one. Estimated time for arrival?"

"If we leave right now it'll take us 6 days."

"Excellent, let's go. I have something I need to take care of, since I don't know how long it'll take. Here are my orders:

"1. Drop us out in the Oort Cloud of the system so that we can see if there's any difficulties in gaining access to the planet.

"2. Once the ship has been cleared, bring in a couple of Huragok to look around, don't let them anywhere near either the hyperdrive or shield generator until we reach the Oort Cloud, and are out of immediate danger. Most anything else is free game.

"3. While the Huragok are floating around request that they make the Peltac into a functional bridge, as much as I appreciate you I don't want to have to rely on you to ferry this floating trash heap around.

"After that do whatever you believe is the best course of action to get us safely to the planet. Questions?" I announce to everyone present. I wait for two negative head shakes before I turn to the wall and open a portal back to my Sweet Home island.

Walking through the house I find myself alone in the building. I move towards my bedroom and walk into the very barebones room and decide to sit down for this, not knowing how I should approach attempting to speak with an Archdeity.

As the thought crosses my mind there's a flurry of lights, colors, and shapes before I find myself in a familiar place.

"Not to insult you or anything but this place still feels like some kind of hell." I speak into the silent, white, and empty space around me.

"Perhaps this would be more thematically appropriate." I hear a snap that is simultaneously thunderous and nearly silent that causes me to blink, when my eyes open from the nanosecond they were closed I find myself somewhere other than the white expanse. I find myself just inside the door of a small cafe, there's no patrons or staff but I suppose it's better than nothing.

I take a seat and continue to look around before it clicks that this is a recreation of the Ascended Cafe that Daniel visits whenever he Ascends. Once again just as I blink I'm suddenly not alone at my table, sitting across from me is an androgynous person who is so nondescript that you could walk in a crowd of them and you probably wouldn't notice.

"I assume you would like to speak to me about the boon being withheld." The person said, their voice equally nondescript and androgynous.

"I would. Not that I'm upset in any way, it has already helped me immensely, I was just curious about the 'why'." I replied, clasping my hands on the table in front of me.

"Your journey is a source of entertainment and amusement among the Gods. However when I made the deal with you I did not take your own enjoyment into consideration. I did some thinking things through after my interference in your last world, this is why you have yet to receive an objective to accomplish in this reality. I have decided to offer you an alternative deal." They said with next to no inflection in their voice.

I blinked again and this time on the table in front of me was a packet of paper that on closer inspection was a contract. "While our previous agreement was never formalized, this time you have a choice: you can carry on as things are, I will restore the boon and you will shortly have a task to complete. Or, you can sign the contract before you. You will not have any expectations placed on you in the world that is your home at the time, in exchange from time to time I will send you to another world of my choice for a period of 7 days in which time you will have a much smaller objective to accomplish. For these smaller jumps you will only have access to what you carry on your person and your Pocket Space, you will not be able to enter your Pocket Dimension until you return. Taking this path will likely allow you to gain access to worlds that you have overlooked due to your choice to focus on a technological advantage. Do you have any questions?"

I take a few minutes to look through the packet before me, while it in no way was enough time to read its entirety, I got the cliff notes. It mainly consisted of everything they had said with the added caveat of the other world jobs could happen at anytime, I would be given one hour to get my affairs in order before being sent off since time would continue to progress in my "home" reality, and there would be a grace period in between each assignment equivalent to a week per Danger Rating tier of the world (not that I would get the next job at the end of the period just that anytime after that point was free game to send me off again. In exchange I would lose my boon, and my special cloning perk would be removed permanently.

Overall it looked pretty good, after all I was focusing on a primarily tech build, but there were many great waifus that I'd miss out on due to the world jump restrictions and my chosen build route.

Having made my choice I take in a breath to request a pen only to blink and find one on the table less than an inch from my hand. Nodding, I pick it up and sign on the dotted line at the end of the packet. Blinking again I find the document and the pen gone. "So, do you know when I'm leaving for my first job abroad?" I ask, trying to bring some levity into the conversation.

My conversation partner gave the slightest hint of a smirk before I blinked and they were gone, and a countdown started in my HUD.

59:58

Well damn.

It didn't take long to just tell the crew of the commandeered Hatak to just wait in the Oort Cloud until I got back and get myself ready for my first mission. When I found myself sitting there with 30 minutes left before I would be whisked away when I got a pop-up.

Initiate Jump?

Y/N

Whelp here we go. I think to myself as I mentally press the Yes and my vision is engulfed by white.

A/N: And there we go, now I am aware that some may disagree with me changing the deal (not many but I'm trying to cut off any outcry before it happens) so please let me explain. I realized that I intend to spend a long time in Stargate and I know that some people may not want 20 chapters in one place and I'll burn out writing that so I'm going to break it up and have fun mini adventures as I see fit to avoid burnout.

Thank you all for your support and appreciation.

Amerikhan: thank you, I do intend to do so as well as now throwing a wrench in with random locations (it'd also let me hop into places where I can get magical help)

Ps: fuck the Reapers

Mugen: ahem yes, that is my thought process and why Nirrti had such sensors… cough but no seriously I just wanted to throw a wrench into my own plans, thank you for pointing out that it wasn't a terrible plot hole. And maybe it helped, who knows…

Alex: thanks for the feedback, I mainly just don't want too many people to interact with at once. And I great minds think alike, lol

Anyway thanks again and as always

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