Stargate: Immortal

by Seraphin2011

Book III: The Ori gone, Aschen imprisoned, Wraith changed and pacified, yet the Alliance is threatened once more. The Vargas are coming and no one knows how they are going to survive an enemy that spans throughout the known universe and had done so for billions of years. By closing the anomalies, they have postponed the invasion by more than two years, but will that be enough?

18. New Frontiers - Part II

Author's note: I was able to put another chapter out sooner than intended. Still, I must say, this evil chapter that talks about too many things turned out bigger than i thought. So big in fact that the next one isn't going to come out anytime soon. Except for ideas, I have nothing written after this.

Well, I hope you like this chapter as well, and also thanks to my beta for helping out.

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Weir was deeply immersed in her thoughts. It had been quite the first encounter and for the first time in a long, long time she had felt that she was facing a superior opponent when matters of diplomacy were concerned.

"They weren't how I imagined them," Weir said to the assorted group of four people currently seated in the strategic room in the back of the bridge. Of course, she was referring to the Aklarians.

Freyr turned and looked at her. "Explain in what way."

"Since we are dealing with a dominion that rules over others, I had the image in my mind that they were more arrogant people," Weir explained. "I made a quick assumption based on my preconceptions towards a dominion."

"That is still to be determined if true or not," Freyr continued with her monotone voice. "The same way you think that you made the wrong assumption the first time, you may be making the wrong assumption now as well."

"When you are facing an intelligent and wise alien race, you must expect them to be able to always display what they want you to see instead of the truth," the Alterran, Loran, added.

"You think they are being duplicitous?" Woolsey asked Loran.

"Truthfully, I do not," Loran answered. "However, I cannot be certain of that after only one meeting that lasted no more than five hours."

It had been a long meeting, and yet, it had been too short to grasp the Aklarians true nature, their hidden motives, if they had them, or much less the whole truth behind their vast dominion. After the alien race in the system they had just visited discovered their presence and stopped their skirmish, a game of cat and mouse began in which the aliens, the cats, had tried to intercept the Illustrious, the mouse, only to every time lose it by a small margin. The game had lasted 32 hours and change before three Aklarians ships showed up and finally made contact, effectively ending their reason to stay in the system.

Thankfully, they knew the Alterran language, which had facilitated the whole introduction process and had prevented any misunderstanding from forming at such an early stage. Then, after a short conversation via video call, the Aklarian representatives came onboard the Illustrious and the five-hour long meeting slowly began. Many points were touched, mostly about what they had already stipulated with Liam. Interestingly, even though they stated that most of the data Liam had sent had been lost, the Aklarians didn't try to take advantage of them. They had promptly given them a copy of the recordings of their conversations with Liam, which she and the other members of the SGA had quickly perused through.

She was startled at first but then realized how smart that move really was. The Aklarians might think they were testing them and that, in truth, the data was never lost, which would have put them in an awkward position if they had tried to take advantage of the situation. Reason enough to play it fair. However, she also believed that this wasn't the main reason why they did it. It was just a feeling, but she thought that the Aklarians wanted to gain the upper hand in these negotiations without the need for deceit by hiding things or by lying on what went down between them and Liam. They wanted to get the upper hand thanks to their strength and not the other's weaknesses. There was also another reason and that was because she felt that the Aklarians had already received from Liam what they wanted and there was no need to risk everything that had already been stipulated by getting caught in a stupid lie. She also had a hunch that they thought very highly of Liam, as someone who shouldn't be crossed without a very good reason.

"I think that Liam laid 90% of the groundwork for us. Also, this alliance is something the Aklarians clearly want, and not just because of the few technologies Liam promised them," Weir concluded. "I also think that their ethical principles are not all that different from those of us Terrans. However, I do think that they are much more experienced when it comes to dealing with alien races. We are still very young when it comes to xeno-diplomacy."

"Elizabeth, it is to be expected for the Aklarians, a race that has traveled the stars for the past hundred thousand years, to have more experience than the Terrans who have done so for barely twenty. It is possible, due to the incredible number of sapient species inhabiting this region of the universe, that when it comes to diplomacy with alien races the Aklarians have more experience that even us Alterrans." Loran added. "I also agree with you that there shouldn't be much of a difference between the Terrans and the Aklarians. At least, that is my impression after this short first meeting."

"I'm not sure that I agree," Woolsey protested. "Putting this first meeting aside, a meeting in which we could have easily be fed a bunch of lies or half-truths, what we know for certain is that they rule over other races, whether they want it or not."

"Richard, didn't you see the data coming from Earth related to the people's opinions on where we are at and of their expectations from us the federal government?" Weir asked.

"Which part exactly?"

"The part that many have stated publicly that we, as in the Terran Federation who has become a superpower in the Milky Way galaxy, should be the one to 'guide' the other human worlds. In my opinion, the only difference between this 'guiding' the people on Earth were talking about and the dominion the Aklarians have here is that the Aklarians are at least honest on what it truly is."

"If you listen to what people on the streets of Earth think and want you'll get a million different things, one wackier than the last. From those same polls, a good chunk also expects for the next tech release for lightsabers to become available," Woolsey said.

He got her there. However, "When people were asked to choose if we should stay mostly isolated, make alliances, or be the ones to write policy in the galaxy in order to correctly guide other human worlds, more than fifty percent chose the third option. I'm not talking about a few percents of people who want lightsabers. Those people would probably manage to cut their own fingers clean off if we gave them such weapons anyway," she concluded, actually a little startled by the fact that if they wanted they could actually make them lightsabers. It would probably turn chaos on Earth.

"I didn't know it was such a high percentage," Woolsey responded, looking a little perplexed now.

"It is normal for humans from Earth to choose the option that seemingly gives them the greatest rewards. Being in charge, ruling over others, indeed it often gives the best benefits," Loran said. "And the right path isn't to dissuade humans from thinking that way either. It would be like forcing humans to go against their very nature. Instead, the right path is to teach humans that being the one in charge doesn't give the most benefits. It only gives more obligations."

Freyr then continued. "The way people on Earth think right now is because your race is still a very young one. One that still knows of poverty and knows of the struggle to provide for your basic needs often only attainable by taking wealth from others. However, people of Earth must begin to realize the technological progress you have made and that material possession are now easily obtainable for all. No more hunger and no more poverty. No more negative emotions like envy because your neighbor has many things while you have barely enough to provide for your family. When we talk about an entire race, the change is even greater. There is nothing Earth can gain from, as you have called it, 'guiding' other human worlds that the current technology you possess cannot easily produce. The only thing you need to be mindful of is greedy people who, no matter how much they have, will always want more. Those with an insatiable appetite for the material can still disrupt a harmonious living of even the most advanced of races if left to fester and thrive."

It made sense, she thought. Don't try to go against human nature, not forcefully at least. Instead, teach people that letting others live their lives free is the best way since everything humans on Earth could possibly want can be obtained from their own resources and the advanced technology they already possess, instead of exploiting others. And she knew of the problems an insatiable appetite for possession of material things can cause. She has the same problem, at least when it comes down to shoes. An insatiable desire to buy just one more pair on sale. "I think we are getting off topic here."

"I believe so as well," Freyr added. "What is our estimated time of arrival?"

They were traveling to the supergate in order to use it to travel to the other galaxy with a supergate, also part of the Aklarian territory. The galaxy was located on the fringe of the Aklarian territory where they were trying to clean up the Scourge menace. An arduous task, apparently.

They were going to show the Aklarians how to use the supergate to travel between the two galaxies and in order to get a peek at the Scourge. They wanted to get a feel for what kind of threat they represented. "Now that the Aklarians are traveling with us, it won't take long. The ship says it will take us approximately ten more minutes.

"Knowing where those chaotic regions are, allows us to travel at a much greater speed," Woolsey added. Then turned to look at Weir. "What do you think about their build-up in military assets?"

The Aklarians weren't stingy when it came to showing what they had accomplished after their meeting with Liam that had happened almost two years ago. "In this little amount of time they had increased their Navy by an impressive 15,000 warships, and all the ships have an intergalactic hyperdrive installed. They are prepared to send all of them in the first wave, whenever and wherever we want them to. Our ships are technologically more advanced than theirs, but, still, there is something to say about numbers too."

"Numbers we can't match right now. Not even if we combine all the available ships from our entire alliance," Loran stated.

It was the sad truth. They simply didn't have so many ships, even if they sent all of them to the very last one. Things would now start to slowly change since they have now finished building an impressive array of shipyards. However, they were still limited by the number of trained officers who were supposed to command those ships. Even with the accelerated training program through the use of virtual reality on other gadgets, they were still falling short. She was sure the Aklarians would be very useful in filling the ranks. "They will probably be more useful in this first stage than us. Right now, we are not planning to directly engage the Vargas. Just their minions. Here the Aklarians greater numbers will shine more than having more advanced ships."

"The Aklarians have also agreed to send as many ships as it is needed in order to break the Vargas allies' back, however, only as long as we keep our promise of dealing with the Vargas directly when the time comes," Woolsey added.

It was a good deal for the Aklarians who had many ships, but when it came to facing the Vargas warships, they were a bad match. On the other hand, the SGA didn't have the numbers to face all the threats present out there in the vastness of space. "We are both getting what we require the most at the moment. The Aklarians are getting an ally capable of facing the Vargas, and we are getting the numbers we desperately need."

"I agree," Freyr concurred. "From what we were able to retrieve from Liam's logs, there are several more races we can expect them to be very helpful in this war. However, I do not believe any of them will have the same numbers as the Aklarians do. Their empire is indeed vast."

She had to agree. They have established a presence in more than 40 galaxies, with seven of them forming the core of their empire. There were trillions of them and trillions more in races that had become part of their huge dominion. If nothing else, they won't have any trouble manning all those ships they are sending. She then suddenly thought about the race they had met not even two full days ago. The Aklarians had explained that they do not interfere with races who have yet to join the interstellar community. She was also astonished to learn that there were hundreds of such races the Aklarians were currently monitoring without interfering. Races unable to leave their home star system.

Liam did mention on a few occasions that discovering a way of faster than light travel wasn't an easy feat to accomplish. The Aklarians also added that they had seen many races never achieving such a feat, even after thousands of years of struggle to leave their system. He said that the main reason for that was luck, or rather, lack thereof. Unlucky enough to be born inside a system that did not have Naquadah in it, therefore, forced to develop fusion reactors instead still powerful enough to create a hyperspace window. Such reactors were very difficult to make, and that would make any type of testing any FTL prototype ship all that much more difficult and expensive. Then, if you added the highly theoretical nature of the physics involved in developing hyperspace travel, and it wasn't strange at all that some races were unable to come up with a viable FTL drive even after hundreds or thousands of years of sporadic attempts all resulting in expensive failures.

Weir snapped from her thinking as she sensed somebody entering the strategic room. It was the captain.

"Five more minutes and we are at the supergate," the Captain informed.

The information was clearly meant for her. She needed to join him on the bridge. "I'll join you in a moment, thank you."

As the captain went outside, she asked if anyone wanted to join her but nobody was too excited about the idea. They had been present during the meeting with the Aklarians, but now they didn't show any interest. Not that there was much to be excited about either. After dialing the other galaxy, they would be once again entering hyperspace and would then travel for half a day more in order to reach the edge of that galaxy where there were a lot of those Scourges the Aklarians were fighting present. Indeed, their presence on the bridge was superfluous. Hers was necessary only because they were going to pass the supergate's dialing protocol to the Aklarians and let them dial for the first time. It was an event that she needed to attend.

While everybody else remained in the strategic room to talk a little more, she went to the bridge and sat in her usual seat. It didn't take long before the blue tunnel on the frontal display was replaced by the blackness of empty space. The ship then turned a little to port and she could now see the supergate floating.

"Sir, the Aklarians are hailing us. They are asking for the dialing protocol as agreed upon during the meeting," Carvalho informed.

"Send them the prepared package, Lieutenant," the Captain ordered.

It took very little before the reply came. "They acknowledge receipt of the package. They are also asking if they can be the first to go through the gate."

The captain turned towards her, waiting for her approval. She didn't quite understand why they wanted to go first, though. Well, if the Aklarians were feeling adventurous, why not let them? "Fine with me."

"Inform them that we agree. Also, inform them that one of our Defiants will follow behind them as our scout. Also, send the order to Defiant One to do it."

The information was sent and took a little time for the Aklarians to go through, to them, the unknown protocol. Suddenly there was movement. She could see on her monitor that the Aklarian ship was speeding towards the supergate. It happened almost at the same time as the supergate's components began cracking with energy, one after the other. The Aklarian ship was now finally visible on the main display. Their ship was bigger than theirs and from what the captain said it was certain the ship was a warship through and through. Unlike their ship that had its weapons emplacement hidden - making it look more like a diplomatic vessel or meant for exploration than as a ship of war – the Aklarian warship boasted an impressive array of larger and smaller weapon ports. Of course, they did not know their ship's performance, much less the performance of their weapons. They had used only passive scans as it would have been very rude to actively scan every inch of their ship on their first meeting.

"What do you think of their ship, Captain?" she asked.

"I'll answer in the same way my tactical officer answered when I asked," the Captain looked at her and then answered with one single word. "Utilitarian."

"Utilitarian?" she wasn't sure how he came to such a conclusion, or what it meant exactly.

"There isn't much we can find out about their ship without actively scanning it, which is something we clearly cannot do to a new ally. What we know is from using our passives in order to scan its surface and by collecting data from the various energy emissions originating from inside it and are not shielded. First comes the ship's outer appearance. Rough edges, nothing at all has been smoothed out whatsoever, and the main stage was clearly prepared for the various weapon emplacements. It looks like everything else, like secondary ports, sensors, communication dishes, etcetera, etcetera, all have found a place on the hull only after all weapons and shield emitters had been placed on the best spots first. As aesthetics goes, I would give it a barely sufficient mark.

"Then comes the various energy emissions we are able to detect. There is no subtlety in them nor areas with any kind of dampening effect. The emissions are just blasting from everywhere and the energy signatures of the reactor and hyperdrive both show rough spikes. There's no finesse to be found anywhere."

"So, what you're telling me is that the main points of this ship are probably its low building cost, short building time and built with predominantly peak military performance in mind."

"Exactly! More than what's the case even with our heavy cruisers. Among all our ship classes, I believe that's the most utilitarian class that we have. One with brutal offensive power in as a small package as possible and in no small part achieved by pushing everything else, like comfort or other unrelated functionalities, far, far behind in second place. Also, you said it right. From its appearance it is very clear that they were trying to design a ship that is very easy to build, hence why it almost looks like a glorified brick," the Captain said.

It didn't look like a brick, not exactly, but it wasn't far from it either. This ship also had no landing gear or anything that would allow it to fly inside an atmosphere. All things that would take additional space and made the ship cost more if added, and also questionable if they would ever be used. "But that isn't all that bad. Compared to their ship, ours look like a gorgeous limousine. No wonder the Aklarians that came onboard asked us if this was a warship or not. I have the feeling they would have asked the same question if we came with one of our battlecruisers, though."

"True, the battlecruiser has been polished to the last detail. I admit it doesn't look very utilitarian. Not on their level of utilitarian at least," the Captain replied while pondering about it for a while.

"Don't get me started with the budget for those ships," she replied, thinking how expensive that particular ship class was. The Armageddon was an amalgamation of best comfort, intricate design and top performance, all wrapped into a very costly package. The people in charge were thinking of maybe designing another ship class, a sort of Armageddon on steroids, but with the cost and build time remaining approximately the same. They were planning to achieve that by removing everything deemed excessive. It would probably turn out into a similar brick like the one the Aklarians were riding on. It would be a battleship class of almost 1.5 times the length of the Armageddon, massively automated in order to minimize the crew size, and with very little comfort compared to other ships currently in active service in the Terran Space Navy. No holo-rooms, Lounge Bars, and other recreational facilities. It would be a crude ship, but very effective in what it was meant to do.

However, there were many who were opposing the idea of such a ship seeing the light of day and she was actually one of those people against it. The reason for it was very easy to understand. There was simply nothing the battleship could have that the battlecruiser didn't already. Internal space dedicated to storage wasn't such a problem anymore, ever since the introduction of the Wraith storage system. All of their ships were now having even a separate system to swap weapons whenever needed. Also, the main power source during battles were not the main pulse reactors, but rather the large high energy capacitors that stored a large amount of energy and of course the onboard ZPM. Although the battleship would be able to have a larger capacitor capable of storing more energy, the ZPM would still remain one and the same. And they could not spare more than one of the precious devices per ship either. Even with many charging stations, they had built thus far near black holes or in hidden places throughout the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies where the charging was done with the Arcturus reactors, they were still building ships faster than the charging of the ZPMs was proceeding.

Therefore, each of the battlecruisers was getting one ZPM charged at only 80 percent. The rest was up to the ships to slowly charge over time, if at all possible. Even the Heavy support ships that were part of every task force, like the one Sheppard was leading, among other things had an Arcturus reactor dedicated to charging ZPMs when not traveling through hyperspace, a place where the reactor, unfortunately, didn't work. And yet, it still wasn't enough. Every ship class had its own different ZPM type, perfectly matching the ship's distinct energy production capabilities so that when not under stress, they could be recharged. The Navy knew that if the war was delayed by another ten or twenty years they could build enough charging stations and stock up on enough ZPMs to give larger ships more than just one. Unfortunately, the Vargas would not give them so much time to prepare.

The idea of using more than one ZPM with a low charge also wasn't feasible because a ZPM had a higher power output the more it was charged. So, the effect of using even ten ZPMs all at ten percent charge was lower than the effect of one fully charged ZPM. All this was making people think that building a bigger ship yet being unable to provide the necessary power output for it was a fool's errand. The battleship would have more weapons and would have to sustain a much larger shield. The ship was also a bigger target, all quickly summing it up to the ship needing at least twice the power output of a battlecruiser in order to be as effective.

It was true what many high-ranking officers were saying what the biggest problem in this war would turn out to be. It would be logistics. Too many ships, too many places, and too many resources needed by all of them. Even here, in the vastness of space, an army still traveled on its belly.

"Sir, the Defiant One has gone through the event horizon," Carvalho informed, which snapped Weir from her thoughts.

She was waiting now, the same as the rest of the crew for their scout to inform them that on the other side the coast was clear. However, the expected message wasn't promptly sent back like all on the bridge were expecting. Even the captain was starting to frown in confusion. Give a ship a minute or two at the most and they would inform you that the rest can safely go through the supergate. That was what would usually happen.

Then, the reply finally came.

Carvalho frowned. "Um, sir, it seems Defiant One has stumbled on some aliens on the other side."

"Details, Lieutenant. I need details," the Captain urged.

"Seven ships of unknown configuration. The Aklarians have opened communication with them, but the captain of Defiant One is informing us that they are unable to understand each other. It seems their translation matrix isn't succeeding either," Carvalho explained.

"I think we should all go, the sooner the better," the Captain said after only thinking for a short moment.

He was clearly asking for her opinion. Since the Defiant One was already facing the unknown aliens in a potentially dangerous situation, it was slightly murky on who was in charge now. Usually, she was the mission leader who makes the ultimate decision, but when it was clearly a hostile situation, the highest-ranking military officer in a fleet was the one making the tough call. "All? Even the support ship?"

"Yes. The more ships we have, the lesser the chances of the other side making a rash decision that they would regret later," the Captain responded with a slight smirk.

He was a more moderate military man than the likes of Sheppard or Ellis, but there was still that fire in his eyes that tells you clearly, 'don't screw with us or else'. "Sure, sure, let's do that. As long as we can make peaceful contact, I'm fine with it."

"Go fleet-wide, set Condition Two, formation Epsilon. All ships are to travel through the gate," the Captain ordered.

Orders were given and ships began to move forward. The Illustrious and the support ship were following Defiant Two while Defiant Three was keeping watch at the rear. Condition Two meant that the reactors were turned to max and the shield and main capacitors were being overcharged. The only thing still dormant were the weapons, silent and still kept hidden behind hidden ports on the hull. However, even those were put on standby in order to bring them quickly online. They were as ready as they could be. Now the point was to understand the other side and to find a peaceful way to solve whatever was troubling the aliens. "How have alien ships turn out in front of our supergate that has been laid here only three days ago?"

"Not a clue," the Captain said, then turned to his right. "Lieutenant Nishigaya, any guess?"

The young science officer turned, looking annoyed. She clearly didn't like the captain saying that what she was doing was nothing more than pure guesswork. "It has been mentioned that the Sphere creates a strong disruption when it emerges from the created jump point. It is possible that an advanced enough race, if close enough, could detect the event and come investigating."

"I like it! Good guessing!" the Captain said with an evil grin. He was apparently doing it in order to tease her.

Weir looked at Nishigaya. It seemed as if she was mumbling something to herself while pouting. Now she knew why the evil captain liked to tease her. The usually expressionless youngest officer on the ship looked quite cute right now. The rest of the crew seemed to like it too. She also understood that the captain must have done it in order to alleviate the tension that had quickly begun building up on the bridge. It was the first time the crew was going towards a potentially dangerous place.

The Illustrious passed the gate's event horizon and suddenly emerged in a different galaxy, 12 million light-years away. The frontal display quickly showed both allied and unknown alien ships floating in front of them. There were seven alien ships, just as it had been reported. Four were only slightly bigger than the Defiant, another two were around five hundred meters in length and then there was one slightly bigger than a kilometer in length.

"What can you tell me about those ships?" the captain asked while turning to look at his tactical officer. He was the one who would need to make a threat assessment.

"The smaller ones should have the same role as our Defiants, fast attack ships. Those medium sized should be cruisers. I can detect a dozen weapons ports, but without going active with our sensors I can't say more than that. The last one doesn't seem like a warship. I would guess it is more like a motherships class. Only smaller weapon emplacements are visible on the largest ship, but it doesn't seem like a carrier. There are no detectable hangar openings."

"What about their strange look?" the Captain asked.

"It seems they are mostly organic, sir. There is armor plating made of a metallic alloy put on top, but underneath all their ships are predominantly organic. Though, unlike the Wraith, I can clearly detect emissions indicative of a Naquadah reactor as their main power source. There are two other sources of hard emissions indicative of two smaller fusion reactors."

"A mix of organic and inorganic shipbuilding pattern. First time seeing it. Usually, races prefer one or the other, but never both," the Captain said.

"There are some compatibility issues, however, if those are solved the combination of the two can give quite amazing results," Nishigaya added.

"Yes, as far as guessing goes, yours isn't a bad one," the Captain added.

The woman was pouting again. Apparently, calling her deductions and her way of reasoning a mere guesswork was her kryptonite. The captain must already be on her shit list because of it. No gift for Christmas

"Carvalho, let's tap into the discussion the Aklarians are having with the aliens," the Captain said.

It was all broadcasted in the clear, so there wasn't a problem listening to it. Half of the main display showed the Aklarian on his bridge while the other half showed the alien standing on his bridge. At this very moment, Weir knew that she had failed as a diplomat, and possibly she had failed in other ways as well.

Her carrier had begun as a diplomat who had worked hard trying to broker deals between countries on Earth that were not in the best of terms. She was very successful at her work, so much so that she had been accredited as the one responsible for preventing several wars and even broker a few peace treaties among others who already were warring against each other. She had been very satisfied with her work and she thought she would continue doing the same thing for decades to come. However, fate had a different idea of what her future held. The call from her President came out of the blue and she was suddenly informed that Earth was just a small speck of dust in a very vast universe filled with countless such specks. Even worse than that, humans were spread throughout their galaxy on countless worlds.

A new adventure was starting for her, one in which her first job would be to deal with the Goa'uld, beings who should apparently be locked up in a loony bin and the key then tossed straight in a black hole. However, once you understood their motivations, it was possible to steer them to get what you wanted. Of course, only if you had the right tools, which at the time were a bunch of very powerful weapons left on Earth by the Ancients, as well as the friendly Asgard, always ready to back them up but also always preoccupied with one crisis or another happening somewhere in their corner of the universe.

Afterword, she had met many races, some she liked, other she didn't, but she always managed to get the best out of any meeting. To get what she wanted and solve another possible crisis, it was what she thrived for and at what she excelled at. There were also bad times though. The most difficult moments she had to endure were, of course, the times in which she had to directly deal with the Wraith. A race that looked at you as if looking at a cow they were preparing to eat raw. A tasty piece of meat, just that and nothing more. It was unpleasant, but it was her job to deal with them in order to get the best outcome possible.

Today, she had reached a point in which there was no doubt in her mind that she couldn't deal with these aliens, no matter what.

From the moment she saw them on the main monitor, in full view, she wanted nothing more than to send a marine in one of those overpowered power armors with an oversized broom to smash to death that overgrown cockroach who was currently in the process of making incredibly disgusting sounds. She thought that maybe it wasn't the computer that couldn't translate their language. Instead, the computer was probably refusing to do so out of disgust!

And she also knew that she had failed as a proud woman, as she had no doubt that, if the moment came when God forbids, a diplomat had to be sent on that alien vessel, that she would, without a second thought, send Woolsey – a man – to deal with the almost five feet tall cockroaches instead of going herself.

She suddenly shuddered as she saw one of the cockroaches in the back suddenly dropping on the floor on all six before quickly scurrying through a low, dark opening on the bottom of the bridge's back wall. She suddenly had the clear image of a cockroach running under the fridge the moment the lights were turned on.

She took a deep breath before turning towards the captain. He didn't look any better than she did. He was clearly thinking of doing something bad. Something his instincts were telling him it was the right thing to do. She coughed, "It seems the aliens are getting more and more impatient, at least that's my impression from how their antennas are swinging madly while they are producing those screeching sounds."

"Ah, I truly don't want to look at them for long enough to know how wildly they are moving their antennas," the Captain stated honestly. "Why isn't the translation matrix working?"

"Unknown, sir. It is having the same problem as with the Gadmeer. The syntax and the too subtle nuances in the various screeching sounds are proving to be troublesome," Carvalho said.

The captain wanted to say something but the tactical officer was faster. "Sir, from the logs I retrieved from the supergate, the aliens came here two days ago. They tried to approach the supergate but when the dampening field the supergate generates prevented them from proceeding any closer, they decided to open fire instead. The gate didn't respond in any way because it didn't flag them as a serious threat."

The supergate was directly tapped into the black hole, sucking as much energy as it needed. There was no way that what appeared to be third-rate aliens would be able to do anything to it. Why was she thinking of them as a third-rate race? She didn't know anything about them, yet she couldn't but to belittle them for some reason. It must be because of how they looked. It must be because they were the distant cousin of the cockroaches they have back home and that humanity is trying to exterminate from time immemorial.

Then the illustrious shook.

"Why us? Of all the ships present here. Why did they fire on us?" the Captain said puzzled.

She too wasn't certain why the first shot was directed at them. They were not the ones who were talking to them, were not the first ship that came through the supergate, or the last. They were not the biggest ship or the smallest. "No clue, Captain."

"From their point of view, we are the least menacing," Nishigaya intruded. "We are the only almost completely white ship, the brightest of all six ships present here, and we have no visible weapon protruding out of our hull."

"I think, our science officer is onto something," the tactical officer added.

"So, the aliens are bullying the weak, is that it?" she asked. The Terrans had put a lot of effort into making their ship look non-threatening and the result, apparently, was an enviable success.

"I don't much care," the Captain said. "The only thing important to me is that they opened fire on us while we didn't even take our weapons out, much less charged them."

Did the captain want to clean the universe of cockroaches? He seemed resolved. "What are the Aklarians doing?"

"They are not doing anything. They are not powering their weapons either," the Captain said.

"So, they are waiting to see what we do. We were the one to be hit, so it is up to us to make the next move. Whatever that move might be."

"Well, if it's up to me, why not go all out?" the Captain said.

Since they were near the supergate, she knew exactly what 'going all out' meant. The supergate was connected to a black hole and a certain scientist had developed a way to transfer energy through a high-frequency subspace band. It meant that all Terran ships could easily tap into an unlimited power source. She was sure they could deal with these aliens with ease. There was no way these cockroaches could penetrate their shields while their ships were receiving additional power from the supergate. The supergate also had other surprises if needed that would make the aliens' chances of victory plummet even further. However, there was also something she wanted to avoid. Besides, she was still of the opinion that they were against some trigger happy, third-rate aliens. "Captain, could we not go all out. Could we instead just let the Defiants deal with them?"

"Why should we go easy on them? Even though our shields didn't drop even by one percent, we shouldn't go easy one someone who attacked us unprovoked."

"You clearly misunderstood me, Captain," Weir said, smiling. "I just don't want to let the Aklarians know any of the hidden cards our supergates have, not at this point at least. The Aklarians are surely capable enough to detect the transfer of energy from the supergate to our ships if we use it. As far as these cockroaches go, do please send them to the afterlife, Captain."

The captain seemed stunned. "I have a feeling that you really don't like them."

"I really don't. And since they fired on us first, unprovoked I might add, I don't have to like them either, do I?" In her career she had to deal with many races she didn't want to deal with but nonetheless she had to for the sake of peace or some other gain for the Terrans. This race wasn't among those she would deal in a diplomatic way and it was their fault.

The captain turned and took a deep breath. "Fleet orders are as follow. All ship set to Condition One! The support ship is to stay behind the Illustrious - we will provide protection for it. The three Defiants are allowed to fire at will at the affronting alien fleet and use whatever tactic they deem necessary for achieving total victory! The Illustrious will share its active scanning of the hostile fleet for better resolution. Also, I authorize the use of the neural net. To all Defiants, good hunting!"

The neural net, the system that allowed all the crew members on their smallest ships to merge and become one with the ship. Incredible response time, the ability to make maneuvers so fast that under normal circumstances a crew would die from in an instant, and the ability to sense the surroundings directly through the ship's sensors.

It was definitely going to be a nice spectacle to watch.

She wasn't disappointed. Not even two minutes later, during which the aliens had fired once more, the three Defiants exploded forth as if they were on fire. They all passed near the closest of the four alien attack craft in an instant, quickly unleashing true hell upon it. After their pass, the alien ship was just a burning husk. The aliens probably still didn't understand what was going on when the next victim had already succumbed to the Defiants' mad rush. It was one of the larger ships this time. A cruiser. It instantly had its shielding on its port side penetrated under a concentrated barrage. Heavy damage was also inflicted on the suddenly unprotected hull.

"Miss Muir, if you would," it was all the Captain said.

Four plasma lance rushed from the Illustrious, striking at the unprotected port side of the already damaged alien cruiser. Miss Muir, the tactical officer, was quick to react, she had to give her that.

"We already had the technological advantage but these aliens are really making it easier for us," the Captain said with a hint of disappointment mixed in.

"How are they doing that?" she asked. She wouldn't usually ask while the ship was in battle conditions in order not to disturb, however, the atmosphere was so relaxed and most of the fighting was done by the Defiants that there was no real reason not to disturb the captain.

"The pulse quantum disruptor weapon the Defiant uses is best when it can be calibrated for a specific target. Because of it, the weapon displays much better results against armor than shields simply because once you know the composition of the armor, the PQDs were unbeatable. However, when used against shields, they usually need to be set to a much wider spectrum in order to encompass all the shields various modulations, which makes them less effective. And I stressed here the 'usually' part because that's not the case here. The aliens are not changing their modulation and frequency of their shields even by a little, which makes it very easy for us to detect their composition. Making quick recalibration of the PQDs for maximum efficiency becomes very easy."

There was more to shields than she knew, or even wanted to know. Apparently, shields were not just a bubble that protected a ship no matter what. There were settings, modulation, and different frequencies as well. All things she didn't care much about, except the part where the aliens had screwed up, making their job easier. The four plasma lances fired at the unprotected side had done massive damage to the ship, completely disabling it and leaving it spinning on a strange axis. On her monitor, there was data informing her that the targeted ship's main reactor got damaged. They were lucky it didn't blow up right away. Not that it would help them much in the end.

In the meantime, the Defiants were continuing with their devastating dance. A hit and run tactic that was quickly turning the enemy ships into floating junks while they were barely able to score a few meager hits at the elusive Terran attackers. The crew of the Defiants was working really quickly. They were probably trying to quickly finish the job as it would mean spending less time hooked in the neural net. Less time spent inside meant less time spent feeling sick afterward.

The aliens were turning. The big mothership and the other cruiser that didn't sustain crippling damage were opening a hyperspace window, leaving this place the next instant while the two remaining, smaller ships, were being dealt with by the Defiants. Those two would not get the chance of opening a window and escape. "It seems the aliens turned tail."

"Smart choice. Unexpected after their moronic opening act, but still smart given the outcome. I still don't get why they fired and why on us specifically. At least wait ten minutes to learn how to communicate with us first, and only then get your ass kicked," the Captain stated.

He was clearly enjoying this more than he should. However, it was true that with this, they had shown the Aklarians what they were capable of. It should alleviate any concern the Aklarians might have had about their abilities.

Speaking of the devil…

"Sir, the Aklarians are contacting us," Carvalho stated.

"Open a channel," the captain ordered.

On the display, the same Aklarian with whom they had dealt with the most during their five-hours long meeting appeared. The Aklarians looked similar to humans, just with a gray skin color and with more pronounced and sharper facial bone structure, especially on their foreheads. "Congratulation on your swift victory. It appears as an easier solution than learning their language."

"Thank you. They were foolish enough to open fire before being prepared or fully committed to what that act entails. They should have at least waited until after learning to speak with us."

"Yes, I agree," the Aklarian said, then stopped for a moment with a pensive look on his face. "Captain, I must apologize, but we won't be able to search for the Scourge at this moment. We need to go back in order to bring some reinforcements now that this new race has appeared. I promise to deliver all available data in regard to the Scourge the next time we meet."

"Agreed," the Captain said. "The truth is that we are slightly behind our schedule, so we will proceed with our journey as well. You can expect a battle group will come to your galaxy in two weeks' time. You can give them the data about the Scourge."

"Yes, by then the first wave of our ships will already be waiting in front of the supergate. Hopefully, together, we can successfully oppose the Vargas nemesis," the Aklarians replied. "To you Terrans, our new allies, I wish a safe and productive continuation of your journey. May the light outshine the darkness in your path."

The Aklarians disconnected and quickly dialed the supergate. In less than two minutes, they left the galaxy. They would probably bring many ships here in order to guard the supergate, something that actually didn't need any guarding, but explaining that fact seemed quite bothersome, so they all refrained from doing it. And since they had already spent enough time dealing with the Aklarians, the fact that they would skip on the whole search for the Scourge thing was totally welcomed.

"Time to go meet the Inari," Weir said to the captain.

"Yes, time to meet the second race on Liam's list," the Captain said. "Inform the fleet, set formation Epsilon. Lieutenant Nishigaya, please dial the Inari galaxy. Let's hope the discussion with the Inari will go as well as it did with the Aklarians.

"Yes, I'm confident it will," Weir responded, fully convinced and with a positive attitude.

---

There was not a moment that didn't remind him of how distant he was from home or how foreign this galaxy truly was. That was the train of thought Eli was currently having while running for his very life on this strange, new world. He was being chased through very dense and unnaturally purplish foliage of a dense jungle by a fifteen-foot-tall animal the likes of which he knew of no adequate comparison from the many species living back in the Milky Way.

It all started the day he had finally realized that he had been spending his days working with aliens. The day had come when he had to admit it to himself that… Lora was an alien. He had tried with all his might to keep up with her schedule, but it had all been to no avail. The first problem was the difference in how long their respective days lasted. He, the same as all humans – those who had gone through Genesis included – preferred living on a twenty-four hours' day-cycle.

Lora… did not.

Lora's day would normally last thirty-three hours, as it was the norm for all Alterrans. However, since the Terrans were having a daily routine based on a twenty-four hours cycle, she had opted to prolong hers to thirty-six hours making it somewhat more compatible. It was insane. He could not fathom her ability to work for twenty hours straight and still have a smile on her face. That must be specific to their race no other explanation could exist. When she starts with her work, there's simply no stopping her. She even confessed that she loves immensely the long hours of intense work.

On the other hand, after five straight hours of work, he needed to stretch. And by a stretch, he means to take a break of at least half an hour or preferably a full one. He could afterward push for another five or so hours, somehow, but that pretty much meant reaching his limit. After that, no matter how interesting the work he was doing truly was, he needed to stop or mistakes would quickly begin piling up one after another. He needed to unwind by doing something else. Some hobby, some exercise. It did not really matter. Then, he'd need to sleep for a full six hours and not the four that Lora needed after having been awake for thirty-two hours straight. This had finally made him realize that he was working with a bunch of aliens, for he was in the great minority here among the scientists. He was surrounded by a modest group of six Alterrans and one other human.

She looked even worse than how he did.

It was definitely time for a change or else he would end up burned out, or worse, the aliens would start thinking that he was slacking off on his duties. But then, suddenly, an idea had come to him. The idea to spend some time with a fully Terran team while exploring the various planets in this new and completely foreign galaxy they were currently passing through. It was time for him to take his rightful place on SGD-1, the flag team slated to boldly venture onto unknown planets. He was to join the three most human people he knew, Scott, Greer, and Roberts, who each of them slept for eight hours a day minimum and their day lasted the usual twenty-four hours, as it should.

And that was why he was now running for his life while being chased by some creature the size of a house. The lower gravity - some weak 0.75 gees - was also royally pissing him off. He had the feeling that he had totally forgotten how to run. The timing of his legs moving and the amount of force his muscles were exerting was definitely off on this planet for what he was trying to achieve. The others weren't doing any better in this gravity either. He was also glad to see that Greer was running as if trying to win the Olympic gold medal and then push just a tad more, instead of performing one of his usual bravados. Like how he had done the day when they had first come to this galaxy and he had decided to play with some overgrown velociraptor on the first planet they'd visited. He was smart enough to realize that the thing chasing them now was far, far more dangerous and playing with it with his knife like he did the last time, could only help if he intended for the animal to die from laughter.

The animal also didn't seem to have any sense of humor.

"Eli! Dial the gate!" Scott shouted, even though the built-in communication unit inside their helmets was transferring sound just fine even without the need for shouting.

"To where!" Eli shouted back.

"Who cares?" Scott replied, even louder. "Just dial another damn planet!"

This might seem like an easy thing to do, but in truth, it really wasn't. First off, the Destiny was way out of reach. The way they had dialed this planet was by hopping six times from the planet with the lethargic Sloths, which was on the other side of the galaxy in relation to the Destiny. They went through six planets to come here, of which the last planet they passed was, unfortunately, a very dangerous one. The conditions were such that staying for more than a few minutes would result in having the first four humans in this foreign galaxy roasted very quickly. Before proceeding, they had boosted their suits to their limits, waiting for fifteen minutes so that the suits cooled down as much as possible without actually freezing any of them inside and only then stepping through the gate to the hellish planet. Only that had allowed them to survive for the meager minute or so before dialing to this planet. It was all thanks to SGD's protocol of sending a probe, an unlucky one to be sent ahead to visit that hellish world and stop working after mere 45 seconds. Just enough to get the bare minimum of data needed to come up with a viable plan.

If he dialed the same planet the way they were now, he would be endangering his teammates and that he could not do. On the other hand, dialing the next planet on the list was a gamble. It could be a planet as hellish as the previous one and they currently didn't have the time to send a probe first and wait for the results. There was no more time to think. He needed to choose one of the three available worlds they haven't visited yet and hope for the best.

He made the choice and the four of them plunged through the newly formed wormhole at full running speed. They made it through.

"Incredible!" It was the first word he heard through his comm. It was Roberts who had spoken.

He was agreeing – fully - with the man. There was definitely a reason to be stunned. Most planets they had visited thus far were in the 'barely survivable' category. And the rest was in the 'hell planet' category. This, instead, was something different. For this galaxy, it was something new, unexpected, and most of all very welcomed.

A quick check of the suit's sensors determined that the air contained 72.36% nitrogen, 26.17% oxygen, 0.82% argon, 0.09% carbon dioxide and the rest were other gases, none of them toxic. There were also no detectable pathogens in the air, the gravity was 97% of Earth's, and the Sun currently above their heads was heating the green world to very comfortable 21 degrees Celsius.

Have we stumbled on heaven somehow? Did we die without realizing it?

He wasn't the first to take his helmet off. The moment he did, he saw that Roberts was already inhaling the fresh air while keeping his eyes closed. He couldn't fault the guy. It had been some time since they were able to breathe such fresh air filled with the scent of untouched nature. The scent of nature the way humans knew it from planets back in the Milky Way galaxy and definitely not from this one. He suddenly felt homesick.

"This planet is different from the rest," Scott said as he also took his helmet off.

"Yeah, it's as if somehow it doesn't belong to this galaxy," Eli added.

"I'm just glad that the thing chasing us was too big to step through the gate," Greer said.

He was right. If that thing was able to chase them here, they were toast. They had been incredibly lucky to have escaped and even more to land on a planet where they can comfortably rest for as long as they need it. He knew the creature back on the last planet would eventually move on, away from the gate, which means they could manage to somehow return to the Sloth planet. Maybe they should take this planet as their base instead of the planet with the Sloths. Here, they could possibly find edible food that would prevent them from having to eat the disgusting protein bars. Surely, there were edible flora and fauna. It wasn't a prayer the thought of food he just had, nonetheless the bird he suddenly saw take flight from a nearby tree made his hopes skyrocket.

"This world has animals similar to those in the Milky Way galaxy," Eli said.

"I've noticed," Roberts said. "That one looked remarkably similar to a quetzal."

"Similar to what?" Greer asked.

"Many consider the resplendent quetzal among the world's most beautiful birds and this one looks just like it. These vibrantly colored birds live in the mountainous, tropical forests of Central America where they eat fruit, insects, lizards, and other small creatures. Unfortunately, these striking birds are threatened in Guatemala and elsewhere," Roberts said, lost in his explanations.

"Sure, whatever," Greer added, looking weirded out by Roberts knowledge about birds. "If we are going to talk about animals, let's then try to find one that moves on four legs and see if we can eat it. That bird doesn't look very appetizing to me, or big enough."

"Not a bad idea," their leader, Scott, added. "We need to stay here for half a day at least to be sure that that creature is gone. Catching something that we can eat should easily beat eating our rations. We should see if there is a source of fresh water nearby."

The search began, with the four SGD-1 members strolling through the prairie of this uniquely beautiful planet. Even though they didn't yet find water or food, they somehow felt at peace, deep down feeling that everything would be fine. It didn't take long before they met an animal very similar to a deer. It was probably very succulent and Greer wanted to hunt it but it was too far out and in the opposite direction of where they were going. For some reason, Scott wanted to go in a very specific direction, repeatedly stating that this is the right way. Eli also felt the same way, which was making him feel slightly puzzled but he was simply putting it in the back of his mind as something not very important.

They had reached a small torrent. The water in it was so clear that he was dazzled. More so when he used his kit to check the water and it turns out that it had no harmful pathogens in it whatsoever. It was the best water he had ever drank, and after drinking it, he felt reinvigorated, as if he hadn't spent the last ten hours crossing planets and running for his life.

"This is weird," Greer stated it first.

"You don't say," Roberts agreed.

"This way of revitalizing the body, it reminds me of the story of the fountain of youth," Scott added.

"What? You mean the myth?" Greer asked.

"Yeah, that one, but the funny thing is that the fountain of youth, the one located in South America was actually the result of an Ancient healing device buried in a temple. That same device was also the basis for the Goa'uld sarcophagus," Scott explained.

"Should we drink it then," Greer asked, clearly not sure on what to do. "I read the report of what happened to the people who came in contact with that ancient device."

"I just said that it looked like, not that what we have here is the same thing. I don't know what's going on, but since we are in another galaxy, it should be unrelated," Scott retorted.

"So, we are all in accord that something weird is going on here, but none of us seems to care all that much. Isn't that even weirder," Eli said. The sense of peace he was feeling was also making him think that they should do something about it.

"Maybe we should use our long-range comm. to contact Destiny," Roberts inquired. He had the device in his backpack.

"That's for emergencies only," Scott retorted. "And even though this world is a peculiar find, I wouldn't call our situation an emergency."

There were Reapers in this galaxy and sending powerful subspace signals to the other side of the galaxy had to be done only if there was no other way. "Why not look around a little more before we decide."

"It makes sense," Scott said, clearly resolved to continue surveying the planet.

However, things had changed.

"Oh, I think we should call it in right away," Roberts said already taking the long-range comm. system out of his backpack. "Look on the other side of the torrent."

They all looked, and their eyes grew in disbelief. Scott was first to react. "Okay, this changes things. Make the call, right now!"

---

From the moment they made it aboard the Destiny, he could always sense a scent of the old permeating the ship. That was the current - and also the very boring - train of thought Young was having as he walked down one of the many corridors while in the lovely company of the mission's chief scientist, Lora. Now, instead, the smell was gone. The Destiny's new crew was doing a good job not only in repairing the damaged parts sustained during the ship's long voyage but also in thoroughly cleaning it up and giving it a fresh paint job. He had to admit, the Alterrans were tireless people. They worked, worked and then worked a lot more, never complaining or showing even a faint sign of minding doing whatever job they were tasked to do.

And with such disposition of a good chunk of his crew, the rest could not fall far behind either, could they?

It was all coming together nicely. A good atmosphere has set among the crew, with only a few minor problems with a few Terrans starting to feel a little claustrophobic. Some were blaming it on the bad lighting conditions, others on the entire ship looking like a gigantic coffin predominantly made of metal. Frankly, there wasn't much he could do for them. That was also why they had a psychiatrist accompanying them so that people could talk to her and feel better afterward, or so people who went say it.

Besides that, there wasn't much of anything he could complain about.

"Where are we at with the ship's energy storage capacity?" he asked. Maybe deep down he wanted to find something to complain about, just to make things livelier.

"83 percent," Lora replied. "And that's the final number. For more, we'd need a shipyard capable of replacing entire capacitors. Destiny is currently at 47 percent charge. Plenty if you are not planning on needlessly wasting it."

The meaningful look she gave him was enough to let him know what she was referring to. "Don't worry, I'm not planning on going after any aliens. For now, I'm content with flying FTL towards the other end of the galaxy. Although, knowing why we came here would also be nice."

"I am curious why we are here as well. The Ascended must have a specific reason for asking us to embark on such a long and possibly perilous journey," Lora said.

"What about that thing that you found? That thing the ship's recording as it travels," he asked.

"There is a pattern in the background radiation of the universe. A sort of signal that is present everywhere. Unchanging, constant, and I would also say unmoving, even though it doesn't make much sense but that is the only way I can describe it. There is also a slight variation from the signals that originated in the various galaxies the Destiny had traveled through," Lora said, lost in thoughts. She was clearly in full scientific mode now. "Yet, I don't see this as the reason for the Ascended to send us here. There has to be another, more tangible reason."

"Alright, back to square one on the whole 'why are we here' conundrum," he said, now wondering about a more mundane topic. "Will your team be able to finish the work on the main gun while we are mentally commuting back home? I would like to be able to get back in FTL the moment we are done with whatever we are going to talk once we get there," he said, thinking about what possible reason the guys back home could have to ask for Lora and him to use the communication stones together. Usually, as senior officers, they were the least probable to use the stones together, as suddenly using two senior officers at once wasn't a good thing in any case.

"That depends on how long we are going to be communicating with the people on the Gamma space station. I believe the repairs can be done in less than three hours if there are no delays."

"Good, good, I don't think the weird aliens can catch up with us in such a short time," He said, then thought of something that considerably raised his blood pressure. "I would also like for those two aliens we have to stop screeching like deranged roosters every time we try talking to them and start talking to us of their own volition instead."

"It will take some time to map their neural pathways in order to create a compatible mind probe, but we will make one eventually. And when we do, there will be no reason not to ask questions," Lora replied calmly.

The Alterrans did, from time to time, surprise him. People on Earth would probably debate up until the very energy death of the universe on this particular topic. The morality of probing someone's mind without their consent. Instead, the Alterrans saw nothing wrong with it. And he was talking with an Alterran now and not an Edenian. The repository of knowledge did more than just dump some scientific stuff into someone's brain. It downloaded live experiences of people who contributed to the knowledge contained in the massive repository, while also doing some rewriting of neural pathways. Compared to that, the simple genetic change the Edenian went through, the same as the Terrans through Genesis, was nothing much. Lora herself told him that she felt a different person after downloading the knowledge from the Repository. She knew more, many, many times more than before, but she also thought differently about some things. The idea of probing someone's mind with or without consent was for her distasteful before the download. However, afterward, she began believing that there was nothing wrong with it. She explained that with the download she had experienced how the Alterrans had lived, among other things, as fully telepathic beings. Even though most Alterrans could block others from reading their minds, they rarely did so. They found no need for holding their thoughts private and hidden from others. Therefore, she found it not as intruding into something that should be absolutely private as he, a Terran, might believe so. She also explained that the Alterrans had passed the phase where they would pretend and lie and hide, and instead they would admit the truth. That all Alterrans have both positive and negative thoughts that stem from many different emotions. By admitting what thoughts they had, they began the process of removing most negative ones through talks instead of repressing them in a portion of their mind where they could fester and inevitably grow stronger.

Hence, she found nothing wrong with intruding in others' minds, or at least not as much as the Terrans did, who believed that to be the ultimate intrusion into one's privacy. "I'm looking forward to finding out what these aliens want from this ship. I would be also very happy if the Drone System was operational."

"We agreed other projects have priority over it," Lora replied.

Agreed. That was the word she had used. More than agreed, he had conceded after a prolonged discussion of several hours where Lora had incessantly pointed out why other projects are more important. He hoped she didn't read his mind at the end of the discussion because she would have a very clear image of him blowing his own head with his service gun rather than listening for five more minutes to all the reasons why they should do it the way she was telling him.

More than agree with her, he had conceded defeat. "And those projects have all been completed. As well as several others that came afterward."

There was a slight pause before the reply came. "I will start with the drone launching system after the work on the main cannon is done. However, I must warn you that the system will take considerable time to be constructed and the production facility for the drones will be a small one. It will barely give a few drones each day and that is only as long as we have all the materials needed in their construction. We don't have enough of Element-304 and Element-310, and the latter must be synthesized under special conditions since it isn't present in nature."

"I'm not worried about the slow production that much. I would be fine if we could produce a few hundred drones just in case we are targeted by multiple enemies and can't escape right away. I would also like never to have to use them, however, I like to feel safe even more," he said as they were making the last turn before the communication room where the stones were. "Well, if we are finally working on the drones, it means that the repairs to the ship are completed, isn't that right?"

"It is as you say, at least for repairs that can be done outside of a shipyard. The power system is as good as it could be under the circumstances, the shielding system has all of its emitters replaced and functioning at one hundred percent, we also swapped a few components in the shield generator to improve its efficiency, and with today's repairs on the main cannon all weapons will be back at full strength. Thrusters, the engines, the inertial dampeners and the support system have all been checked and improved where it was possible. What remains are minor internal repairs and reopening the sections that have been closed because of breaches. Breaches that do not exist anymore. Frankly, I'm not certain if we need those sections opened either. For now, they would only serve to strain the support system further."

"We will open them if and when the need arises," he said as he opened the door to the communication room. "I must say, I didn't think the ship can be rejuvenated so much and surely not in such a short time. If we look at the capabilities this ship has now and compare them with those when we first came, the differences are quite substantial."

"After the repairs to the hull, the shielding system, and to the energy capacitors, I was already content with the overall result. Those were the most important repairs. With the repairs to the malfunctioning engine unit, we are even more efficient while traveling through FTL than before. Everything else is additional benefits but in my opinion nothing critical."

They both sat in front of the table where the communication stones were. "Well, let's see why the people back home are calling us. Maybe they have found a way to redial the Destiny."

"Doubtful. Such a news would not necessitate both of us to be relayed. Also, I am uncertain of what benefit would that give us. We have everything we need, and what we don't have we can easily build with the equipment we have brought with us. As an Alterran, I can use my race's quantum matter synthesizer. It allows me to construct everything I can envision, in all its details. And with the downloaded repository of knowledge into my mind, as well as having a ZPM available, there is very little I cannot make," Lora explained.

It made sense. The news of having a way to dial Destiny wasn't that big of a deal. Then, the remaining question was, what do people back home want to tell them? "Let's see what they have to say to us."

They were ready to activate the communication stones, however, Lieutenant Vanessa James stormed inside the room. "Sir, we've received a message from Lieutenant Scott."

"Can this not wait, Lieutenant? We are in the middle of connecting with the Milky Way galaxy, and apparently, it is so important that it necessitates both of us to be present," Young asked, a little frustrated. The entire day nobody had anything to report to him. However, the moment he has something real to do, people suddenly start flocking.

"Well, probably it could wait, sir, but I still think that you'd want to hear this immediately," James answered.

Whatever it was it must be important. "Okay, Lieutenant. Let's hear it."

---

"What do you mean, you are going?" Jack asked Thor, one of the assorted group of people currently all seated in the conference room. Aenea, Teal'c, and Adria were also present.

"The Asgard main battle fleet will continue to travel inside the Sphere, the same as the Terran Second Fleet commanded by your double. Now is the best opportunity to join the Sphere now that it still hasn't reached any hostile galaxy," Thor explained.

"Everybody is leaving. With whom am I going to talk to?" This was a grave problem for him. He actually never talked to any Asgard that wasn't Thor, and when he did, it usually didn't go too well. If it was like this, he will have no choice than to dump even more talks on Daniel. However, he knew that when the SGA members were discussing their war plans, it was he and no one else who would have to meet with them. Daniel simply wasn't qualified enough for that kind of discussion, which meant he would have to talk to someone other than Thor about those matters. He hoped it wouldn't be Kvasir. He met the alien a few times and he seemed pretty arrogant. "With whom am I going to discuss military matters if not with you?"

"Heimdall," Thor responded simply.

"Doesn't ring a bell. Well, I hope we'll get along the way the two of us do," Jack said, hoping, eagerly, that that would truly be the case.

"Not likely," Thor deadpanned.

He was taken aback by such a brisk reply. He really wasn't expecting it. How could he be so sure? "Why not?"

"Heimdall has no sense of humor or patience," Thor explained while squinting his eyes. He had put a lot of emphasis on the last word he spoke. "Even for Asgard standards."

Jack took a quick breath. What did 'even for Asgard standards' mean exactly? "I still have no idea why you're so bent on going? As the Supreme Commander, you should be staying here and deal with the big picture. Like I am doing."

"There is a debt the Asgard need to repay the Vargas and I want to be the one delivering," Thor responded.

There was anger there. Jack could sense it. "Is it related to the cloning problem your race was having?"

"Indirectly, yes," Thor answered.

"Indirectly?"

"Yes, indirectly. Ultimately, cloning wasn't directly responsible for the decline and of the eventual extinction of my race that would have certainly happened if Liam did not solve our problem in time."

'Wait, wait," Jack began, now not certain of anything anymore. Was the story being rewritten? Did people simply forget to tell him that? Did he skip another important memo? "How I remember it is that you guys decided to begin cloning as a way of prolonging your life, but didn't take into account the diminishing returns with each subsequent generation of clones until it was too late."

"That is all true, but that alone would not cause a race to go extinct," Thor responded.

"It wouldn't?" Jack was flabbergasted. This was news to him.

"No, it would not, and if you think about it a little more, you would realize it as well," Thor responded, but Jack still had no clue what he was talking about. Thor sighed in response. "Let us postulate that Asgard individuals, as members of any race that reproduces through meiosis, at some point form a partnership with a member of the opposite sex with the explicit intent to reproduce, in short, to have children. Let us also postulate that they do so in the early stages of their lives when they are between twenty and forty years of age. Let us also postulate that once those parents became old and near death, they decide to use cloning as a way of prolonging their lives. Let us also say that their children and the following generations follow their example and do the same. First, have children of their own before cloning their bodies when they near the end of their life. Could in such a case cloning be the cause for the eventual extinction of their race?"

Jack wasn't sure how to answer since, until this very moment, he was sure the answer was 'yes'. However, the question was probably an ambush and it smelled like the right answer was actually 'no'. The problem was that today he really didn't want to use his brain cells to think about difficult stuff, and yet, Thor was asking him to do just that. He turned to look at Aenea and saw how she was shaking her head, which meant his hunch was dead on. "No, it doesn't."

"You are correct," Thor responded, but he was making a difficult face as if he understood that he had merely guessed. "The reason why 'no' is the correct answer is because the children are always reproducing the next generation of Asgard born through sexual reproduction, and no race with a working brain would choose to stop reproducing in such a way and continue only by cloning themselves, even in case there were some considerable benefits from cloning, like the ability to tamper on a clone body."

Jack was thinking hard now. He was fed up with others always telling him the answer. It finally dawned on him. "The Vargas! They did something to you so that you couldn't reproduce anymore and you had to choose to clone!"

"That is the current theory we are working with. The timing of our species losing our ability to procreate and the surfacing of the Goa'uld, which we now know is because of the genetic modifications the Vargas did to them 16,000 years ago, is too coincidental to be unrelated. Also, an investigation into the databanks aboard the Vargas ships discovered that they sometimes use a type of retrovirus capable of changing, or maybe the better word would be corrupting, a species' DNA that displays phasing properties."

"A virus with phasing properties? What's that?" Jack asked.

"That's when part or the whole of an organism is able to shift slightly out of phase, hence almost impossible to detect," Aenea added. "However, such virus is also not normally present in nature."

"And since the Asgard never believed there was an external influence in our race losing the ability to reproduce, we never contemplated the cause being such a complex and artificially created virus," Thor explained. "At least, this is the latest theory the Asgard council is working with. There is no physical evidence the Vargas did anything to us. However, an entire race losing the ability to reproduce in only ten generations is not impossible, but certainly highly suspicious."

"As you've said, all the evidence points to their involvement in your race's decline. Thankfully, Liam had that computer of his run your genome in order to create viable bodies for your consciousness, yet able to reproduce once again. I'm a little confused that you guys didn't do it on your own, without Liam's help."

"The computer running the Asgard genome for 10,000 years through an evolutionary algorithm wasn't the most important factor. The return of an Alterran was," Thor said.

"Meaning?"

"O'Neill, you still do not fully comprehend how knowledgeable the Alterra, your kind, are. Just think about what knowledge you would need to have in genetics alone to create a device, the one on Dakara, that casts an energy waveform capable of modifying a primitive species on another planet so that millions of years later the second iteration of the Alterra is born, all the while keeping the modifications such that a virus that devastated their entire race wouldn't be able to affect them," Thor explained.

It was true. He thought of the now defunct device on Dakara as some big, clumsy weapon and nothing more. He didn't have a clue where to even start to make a device that can create a specific lifeform or it modifies an existing one over an extended period. And it wasn't the device on Dakara alone either. There had been leftover devices that displayed amazing capabilities in manipulating a subject's DNA. Both, the device Nirti used for her experiments, or the one found on Atlantis that Rodney accidentally used.

"Got it. You're set on going no matter what," Jack concluded what was the actual point of their discussion.

"Yes, I am going," Thor replied solemnly. "Soon, the Sphere will enter a region of space heavily controlled by the Vargas and their minions. That will be the first battlefield in this war."

Jack sighed. The first battlefield was going to be fought in the IC 1101 galaxy, one among the largest known galaxies. The galaxy has a radius of 2 million light-years, almost what the distance between the Milky Way and Pegasus galaxies is. Like most large galaxies, IC 1101 is populated by a number of very old, metal-rich stars, some of which are even seven billion years older than the Sun. It has an ultra-massive black hole in the center in the mass range of 40-100 billion times the mass of our Sun, a black hole around which there are approximately one hundred trillion stars circling. It isn't strange that it has become one of the focal points in the Vargas strategy to spread through the universe. From the collected data from Vargas ships, it seems that the IC 1101 galaxy contains 9 distinct locations, each with a hub of 6 anomalies in it. If the SGA were to disrupt all of them, the Vargas' control over the space between the IC-1101 and the Milky Way, a very important and wide region, would be removed.

Thor was going there, his double was too. Sheppard and Laundry were also going as admirals given command of separate battlegroups. Almost 80 percent of all SGA ships would end up there in the next three to six months. Yet, he knew how little that was compared to a galaxy that had 100 trillion stars in it.

"It is good that Weir has managed to get the Aklarians cooperation. They are sending 15,000 warships all with an intergalactic hyperdrive in the first wave alone," Jack stated.

"We will greatly benefit from such numbers," Aenea added. "Even with our combined assets, we are nowhere near that number of ships."

"Thankfully, what we lack in quantity, we make up for it in quality," Jack stated, then turned to Teal'c. "Teal'c, as you've just heard, we are going to send a lot of our ships very far from here. Except for the ships stationed to protect our planets, you can expect only our older ships like the Daedalus and the Achilles to remain and patrol the galaxy. This means that the other human races capable of interstellar travel and the Jaffa will have to step up with their game."

"I agree, however, I cannot with confidence say that the Jaffa will agree to send a large number of ships away from their home systems on patrols. Not while the danger of the Reapers still looms above us," Teal'c replied.

"We have a solution to that. Actually, a half solution to that problem," Jack said after deciding that they still did not have any magic bullet to end the Reapers. Not yet anyway.

"Explain," Teal'c said.

"Well, we have found a way to exploit the Reaper's greatest weakness, which is their unchanging nature. The worst thing about fighting intelligent enemies is their ability to adapt. You find a way to fight them, and they change strategy or make a new weapon that counters your move. This precludes most long-term strategies in which you'd invest a lot of time, only for the enemy to change and toss everything you did down the toilet.

"However, things with the Reapers are different because they never change. The only thing they do is multiply, but their very core doesn't allow them to upgrade their systems. We are sure of this from the data we were able to extract from one of their motherships."

"The Reapers remain the same, I understand. However, how does this help us?" Teal'c asked.

"It helps us because we can invest in creating a dedicated weapon that works only for them. Usually, it would be impractical to build a weapon that works only against one enemy," Jack said while clicking on his pad. A hologram sprang above the table. On top of it, some kind of mechanical squid with very long and flexible tentacles was shown. "Think of this as an antibody exclusively built to kill Reapers. Even though smaller than even the smallest of the Reapers, it moves faster than any of them. Its job is to attach itself to a Reaper with its long tentacles. It then starts emitting a pulse through them that disrupts the Reaper's logic circuits until it completely resets them. Besides being invisible to the Reapers, the best part of this weapon is that it isn't a onetime weapon. After a Reaper is fried, it detaches itself and goes seeking another victim."

"Indeed, if the Reapers are always the same and unable to adapt, this may be the greatest weapon against them," Teal'c stated, but there was a frown on his face.

"What is it Teal'c?"

"I do not know the exact specifications of these Reaper killers. Nonetheless, even what I can see here is enough to know that the Jaffa cannot build them. The level of miniaturization needed to build its pulse gravitic drive alone is certainly beyond our abilities."

"We are fully aware of it. Besides the Tollans, no other human race has the tech base to build this either. This is why the Terrans will be building them and give them to you and the other human races at no cost," Jack said. The fact that it will be given for free should appease even the greatest of skeptics, like Bre'lac and others in their faction.

"This will help persuade many in the Jaffa to move their ships, however, as well as I am, you are also aware that there are other problems. You will have to propose this directly to the Jaffa Council, and there will certainly be those who will disagree with you regardless."

The meaning was clear. There was a large faction that was working against anything Terran would propose, and Jack knew that they would make trouble for them no matter what. Still, Jack smiled at that. He did so because there were ways to go around it, and the reason why was because Teal'c and Bra'tac's faction and those aligned with them was all that they were after. The production of modernized ships their faction was doing was more than double that of Bre'lac. "If the other faction refuses, it is regrettable for sure but we will be fine even with your faction's ships alone."

"If the other side doesn't send their ships, it is questionable if we can send them, even with the new weapon against the Reapers," Teal'c replied, a little worried.

Jack understood. Teal'c wasn't preoccupied about the Reapers alone. He didn't want to send most of their ships while the other major Jaffa faction kept theirs back because he was afraid this would possibly give Bre'lac some seditious ideas that could endanger their worlds. This was enough to make Jack know how the situation between the two factions in the Jaffa Free Nation was deteriorating even faster than predicted. As if it wasn't enough to have to deal with the Vargas and countless minions of theirs. They also have to deal with the Jaffa internal problems. "I'll tell you what. If the other faction doesn't send their ships, we will loan you a couple of our defensive satellites and ground cannons we have a surplus of for each of your planets." Those were defensive systems that were slowly being phased out since they did not have what it took to prove useful against the Vargas. However, the plasma beams the satellites used were the same as those the Daedalus used, and the massive planetary plasma cannons were enough to keep even the Ori at bay if in enough numbers. Even if the other side sent a fleet big enough to succeed in conquering their world, with the addition of these defenses they would lose countless ships in the attempt. Something the other faction cannot afford, even if they came to the insane idea to attack other Jaffa worlds that did not agree with their ideology.

"I thought the Terran Council was against giving such defensive systems because of fear the technology can be stolen?" Teal'c asked.

"First, we will say that the tech isn't the latest of what we have, then we add that the Jaffa promise not to take a peek at what's under the hood. Then, the council will want to install some safety measures, which is not all that a difficult to do, and lastly, we will say that they are only a loan. In the end, I think they'll agree to loan you the cannons and satellites without making any fuss about it. Your weapons after the upgrade with the Aschen tech aren't very far behind from the plasma cannons I'm planning on giving you anyway. It is just that those ground cannons are scaled up, therefore more powerful."

"If the Terrans council agrees, then I can convince the Jaffa without fail, even if the other faction reneges to send help as stipulated in our mutual aid treaty."

The Terrans and the Jaffa did sign a treaty to mutually help each other when facing a common enemy. They did it so long ago that Jack barely remembers it. Not that it mattered. The likes of Bre'lac would find a way to explain why not sending any ship wasn't a breach, or if not, he would simply renege their promise without even batting an eye. Thankfully, he never took that side of the Jaffa into consideration while making any plans. "That's good. In a way, sooner we make it clear to Bre'lac that we stand behind your faction, the better. It might convince them to play nice too."

"O'Neill, what you have just said is very reasonable. However, it does not mean much when the other side is not also reasonable."

"Yeah, you're right about that," Jack stated a little deflated. "Still, let's deal with the Reapers first so that the Milky Way galaxy is once again free of any external threats."

"Even with this new weapon, we still do not have a way to track them down," Teal'c asked.

"We think we have a solution for that as well. That's why Young and Lora from the Destiny are scheduled to come here soon. We think that the Reapers they are facing in their galaxy are of an older type, possibly tens of thousands of years older. It might be possible for them to succeed where we have failed. Hopefully, even though older models, their communication protocols are the same or similar enough to give us what we need. Also-" Jack was about to continue, but he suddenly heard some commotion outside the door. Then two people stormed inside, followed by another officer, the one who was trying to stop them from entering. "What's going on?"

That man was the first to talk. "I'm sorry, sir, but Admiral Young and Lora were insistent they wanted to talk to you right away."

"Admiral Young, did something so massive happened in your corner of the galaxy that you had to storm here ahead of schedule?" Jack asked, a little irked by the interruption.

"Yes, sir, it did," Young said, but then Lora was the one to continue. She was looking straight at Aenea while speaking. "We found Liam."

Jack remained speechless, just like anyone else in the room.

to be continued...

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Well, I did say at the beginning that this is an evil chapter :D. Please leave a review.