Jump Chain Gothic 5 - Confederation

Part 15

Annwn. Milky Way Galaxy.

My fingers seemed to dance over the control panel as Heimdall and I worked on the treatment that would alter Samantha Carter's DNA. The woman herself had already entered the stasis pod, and it hadn't taken as much convincing as it should have to get to consent to this. Clearly spending ten years as a resistance fighter had moulded this Carter into a person different than the one who worked for the SGC.

"This treatment will be different than the ones we have implemented before" Heimdall remarked.

The Asgard geneticists was correct. I'd gifted people with the ATA gene before now, and I'd 'evolved' them too. I'd even genetically engineered them using gene mods that were common for humans in the Mass Effect verse. What would be different about this series of treatments, which would take more than a week while keeping Carter in stasis, was that I was also making some cosmetic changes as well as fixing health problems, and altering her DNA.

"Spending ten years on a planet that is under Goa'uld occupation isn't great for you health" I said "Poor hygiene and bad nutrition have done her some harm, and cut down greatly on her life expectancy".

She was too skinny for my taste, and while all version of Samantha Carter were attractive, this one could do with a little fixing up. I planned to increase her body mass, in a way that would lead to her going up a few bra sizes and alter her DNA so that she wouldn't grow body hair. That was on top of gene mods and the 'evolving' as well giving her the ATA gene.

In exchange for letting me make these alterations to her body according to my taste I would giving the woman a much longer and healthier life, a stronger, tougher body, and a more powerful mind, as well as the ability to control Ancient technology. Which she found to be an acceptable bargain.

That such a strong woman would so easily surrender control over her own life to me seemed rather odd. My other companions had gotten to know me personally before joining my Jump Chain adventure, and there was something in it for them both now and in the future.

Carter had basically traded herself to me in exchange for the liberation of her version of Earth, which still seemed a little wrong to me, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from enjoying my growing harem. Carter would be useful to me, and I was sure that she would be happy with the improvements I was making.

"I was referring to the introduction of naquadah" said the small alien.

This version of Samantha Carter had never been host to a Tok'ra as such she was unable to use Goa'uld tech such as the hand device. While Miranda and I had small amount of Element Zero in our bodies, only naquadah would allow for the use of some Goa'uld tech, as such I'd decided to infuse a small amount of the mineral into Carter's body. Then I would have the Tok'ra ambassador teach how to use hand devices.

She'd also agreed to this because she wanted to be able to use Goa'uld tech as well. I got the impression that if nothing else she liked the idea of being able to do more and therefore be more useful to the group. Whatever her reasoning I didn't care much as I was mostly looking forward to seeing the finished product.

"We've gotten more than enough bio-scans to be sure how much naquadah is safe" I said the biologist.

There was no sense delaying further, it was time to start the treatments. By the time I was done this version of Samantha Carter would be superior to any other version, aside from the Replicator Carter of course, but she wouldn't be much fun in bed I imagined.

(Line Break)

Aurora-class warship. Hyperspace.

"How do I look?" asked Samantha Carter.

I turned in my chair as the human woman entered the bridge, and at once I noticed that she had changed into one of the body suits often favoured by members of my harem. They were tight and flattered the female form very well, while also feeling very comfortable, not that I knew this for certain having never worn one.

Yet for all that they flattered and hugged the curves, they offered quite a bit of protection as well. Each of the suits had a layer of Kull warrior material which could absorb energy and acted like kevlar. And the other layers had similar properties making the suits as good as most sets of power armour.

"Very nice" I praised "The outfit looks good on you".

The outfit was mostly black, with a little red and silver. The colours of the Confederation. It was similar in look and texture to the black and gold outfit that Miranda had sometimes worn back when we'd been trying to deal with the Collectors.

Carter didn't fill her outfit out quite like Miranda or Seven of Nine could, but the improvements I'd made to her physical form meant that she looked very feminine in her new clothes. Her modified body was pleasing to me in ways it hadn't been before.

"Doesn't leave much to the imagination even if it does cover me up" Carter commented.

I'd never told my harem to wear these outfits, but still they'd become the uniform of my companions somewhere along the way. Even Cameron had worn them at times, though she much preferred late 20th/early 21st styles when it came to fashion.

"That can be an advantage sometimes" I told the Tauri woman "Besides it offers much more protection than you might think".

Since seeing was believing. I used my sidearm, which was a Traveller particle magnum, made sure it was on stun and then shot Carter. The enemy disapted harmlessly as it spread out over the armour. A lethal shot would have knocked her on her ass given the range, but I didn't need to demonstrate that.

"See you barely felt tickled" I said.

Since I had just shot her she needed a moment to process what had just happened. Thankfully she was a person somewhat used to strange who could keep a cool head on her shoulders, as such she didn't freak out like some people would have.

"It can protect you against bullets too" I told her "but they can still leave you with bruises, and the materials have limits too, so don't stand around getting shot at".

Which was generally good advice at all times even when you had the best defences.

"What if someone aims for my head?" she asked.

Well that was why we had proper suits of armour for when we went into combat, but the outfit Carter was currently wearing did offer more protection than what I had so far explained.

"The belt you're wearing contains a personal force field generator" I told the blond woman "While its purpose is to protect you from harsh environments, it does offer some defence against attacks. You also have kinetic barriers which are good against bullets and other projectiles. But no defence is perfect so you do come against something that threatens you, then please use the phase cloak".

I could sense the question coming before it was asked.

"Phase cloak?" she asked.

I decided to give her a simple answer as she could study the technology sometime in the future.

"Basically it phases you out of the universe" I explained "While you're out of phase you're a lot like a ghost. You can't be harmed, but you also can't interact with anything".

Not unless you had telekinetic abilities that is.

"The device on your wrist is an omni-tool" I was now saying "It's pretty much a portable computer, only it does nearly everything you could want a computer to do. It can store data, remind you of appointments, act as clock, it's a communications device. It can even scan things. Also it can act as a weapon. You'll just have to figure it out for yourself because it would take hours to show all it can do".

Sure I could have spared the time, however I'd spent the last week working on upgrading more Death Gliders for the Confederation Defence Force and my Jaffa allies, as such I felt the need to go out and do something, so I was taking us somewhere and we were just about to drop out of hyperspace.

(Line Break)

Praclarush. Alternate Reality.

The planet was home to an outpost called Taonas, which was protected by a powerful shield and equipped with a Zero Point Module. Originally, the planet was somewhat similar to Earth, meaning long ago it had been suitable for human habitation.

As all suns did in the end the star of this system began to die, forcing the Ancients to leave the planet. Over the next few million years the planet was ravaged by volcanic eruptions and lava flows; the Ancient outpost itself was protected by its shield, which was covered in a half sphere of solidified molten rock.

The Stargate of the planet was also lost in this process, forcing anyone who wanted to enter the planet to use a spaceship. Which was what I had done.

In the show Colonel Jack O'Neill, while under the influence of the Ancient knowledge downloaded into his mind, brought SG-1 to Praclarush. It was revealed that the outpost was largely still intact and O'Neill used the outpost's star map to show SG-1 the location of the outpost the Lost City — Terra Atlantus, had launched from. Afterwards, he removed the ZPM which the team took it with them in order to power the Ancient weapon platform in Antarctica.

However in this universe, in which there had never been a Stargate program, no one had ever come here, and the shield was intact, at least for now. I planned to remove the partly used ZPM as it didn't look as if my group was ever going to figure out how to create our own, and while I had a whole multi-verse to loot them from they were still in short supply.

According to Seven the golden city-ship that was normally found in the jungles of South America didn't exist in many of the realites she'd been. Which meant that I couldn't just pop over to yet another alternate version of the Stargate verse and loot a few more.

Which was disappointing, but not as much of a hindrance as it might seem as we had many other ways of generating energy, and those methods wouldn't destroy parts of solar systems if they were overloaded. Still even a partly depleted ZPM could provide vast amounts of energy.

"We can't stay for long" I told Carter and Cameron "I'm not sure how stable this place is even with the shield protecting it and the moment we remove the power source we'll have to leave very quickly or risk getting buried alive".

After saying that I began scanning around and while the ZPM was easily detectable it wasn't the only energy reading I was getting. My scans were informing me of several compartments that were hidden by walls. I was able to open two that weren't empty.

One contained what I guessed to be an early version of the Lantean life signs detector, and while these no doubt had some value, even only as trade goods, my group already had a range of sophisticated hand held scanning devices. Still I had Cameron place them inside her looting bag.

This was when I noticed that Carter had already figured out how to use her omni-tool to take scans. This pleased me as it meant the boost to her intelligence was working out. Regular Carter, as smart as she was, would have needed more time to figure out even some of its features.

"There's a toxic atmosphere here" she noted "How are we breathing?".

I tapped my belt.

"They're called life support belts for a reason" I said "The personal shield prevents harmful gases from hurting us while ensuring that we have breathable air. But they don't last forever so that's another reason for us to hurry".

The next cupboard contained a few Ancient pistols. The Alterans had never been a warlike race, and as they came closer to Ascension they became more and more pacifistic, however they were never total hippies like the Nox, who I just never bothered with, so they did keep weapons in their bases if you knew where to look.

"Presents for you" I said to Carter and Cameron, before handing them both a weapon.

Unlike the Lantean version of this weapon, which looked like silly crystal wands rather than guns, these pistols didn't require either mental control or the ATA gene, since they predated those technologies, and while the later was no longer an issue for Carter, she had no experience with mentally controlling technology. As for Cameron she had a mind, but not the way a human did, and she no DNA at all.

"This is what Seven wanted" I told the two females.

This Control Chair like the others functioned by creating a neural interface between the subject's mind and the relevant device, allowing the user to control whatever technology it was interfaced to through thought alone. The interface interprets mental commands given by the user and carries them out, then relays information back to the user for confirmation.

This method of control prevents access to the system through other means, a security measure preventing anyone lacking the ability to use the chair from easily controlling the system without it. Control Chairs were usually genetically keyed to a specific species in order to prevent unauthorized access. Ancients and humans were exactly the same species, but they were close enough that a suitable advanced human could use a Control Chair. Some required the gene, some didn't.

"Why does she want it for?" Carter asked me.

I didn't actually know, but I could guess.

"It might just be for study, but if I were her I'd install one on her ship, it makes them much easier to control" I said "At least for an advanced enough mind".

There was more required than the right gene to use this technology, but I was sure that Seven could handle it. She might be planning to modify her implants for finer control. If so that was her business as I didn't like to micromanage my companions and I had enough work of my own to be getting along with.

I went and sat in the chair that I was planning to loot from this place, and used it to bring forth the ZPM, which I was going to need soon enough. While it was now visible the power source was still connected to the base so the shield remained up.

This was the only ZPM here with any power in it, the shield here didn't require much power since the hardened magma did most of the work, but over millions of years the other ZPMs had run down. Still it was a testament to Ancient science and engineering that anything here was still working.

I then got out of the chair and looked at the faintly glowing cylinder that I needed to remove, however should I remove it the shield protecting this place from the magma, but I had to remove it because I needed it. So I would have to be careful here. I would need to take the ZPM and reach the ring platform as quickly as possible.

"Okay so we need to find a way to get this chair back to the ship" I said to the two women who were with me "But when I remove the power source the shield will come down and this place will collapse, so we need to take the chair with us, but we can't beam it up to the ship while the shield is online".

I was sure that I would have come up with a solution in sort order, but Cameron beat me to it. She grabbed the chair from beneath and lifted it up so that it started to come loose. She had to rock the chair back and forth a little in order to free it, but soon enough she was carrying to the ring platform.

"Well that's one way to do it" I muttered.

I then grabbed the ZPM and Carter's arm, before making my way to the ring platform, which we used to return to my ship. We gone long before the ceiling began to collapse.

(Line Break)

Sol System. Alternate Universe.

"I thought we were going to Atlantis" said Carter as she strode onto the bridge.

Her tone was one of confusion so I decided to educate her as to what was going on.

"We will, this is just a stop along the way" I told the Tauri woman "Seven of Nine informed me of an Earth that I can help without needing to commit too much in the way of time and resources".

Carter seemed more interested now than confused.

"Is Seven of Nine here?" she asked.

Indeed she was.

"Yes, but she'd tied up at the moment" I said.

"She's working on a project?" Carter wondered.

I shook my head.

"No I tied her up for sex and left her the bedroom afterwards" I said.

While I left Samantha to ponder if that was a joke or not I lowered the lights and brought up a hologram. The hologram showed a version of my homeworld, and the two massive ships that were in orbit of the planet.

"What kind of ships are those?" I was asked.

As one of my companions Carter had access to my files, but given the vast amounts of information there was to read it wasn't surprising that she was ignorant of the ships used by the Wraith. I'd spent most of my first two years in the Mass Effect version preparing for future Jumps when not working so I'd been able to put together a lot of information which I'd been adding to ever since.

"They are Hive Ships" I told her "Massive mobile bases and carriers used by the Wraith. Think of them as flying incest hives with powerful energy weapons and you'll start to understand them".

Carter studied the images for a few moments, and I let her think before speaking again.

"They use what's called bio-mechanical technology, which even I have a hard time understanding, and have regenerating armour rather than shields" I told her "They do have sensors, but we're out of phase right now so even if they did detect us when we exited hyperspace they can't find us now, or do anything to harm us".

Phase cloaking was awesome like that. And thanks to my powers I could interact with the world around me even when I was out of phase.

"In this timeline an alliance made up of two Wraith Hives were able to find the location of Earth, and while they should have been stopped at the edge of the Pegasus Galaxy they somehow made it here" I informed the former resistance fighter "There are no signs of any Ori presence in this galaxy, but we won't be sticking around long enough to find out".

Carter did know who the Ori were as while they'd never made their presence known on her version of Earth the brilliant woman had been around my group long enough to pick up a few things of importance. In the Prime Reality that I called home the Wraith weren't really a factor anymore.

Seven had already made contact with the SGC of this world, which had managed to hold on to their base despite being under siege by the Wraith who seemed to want the base intact, possible because they knew that the SGC had a lot of information about planets in this galaxy.

The SGC should know that was coming, but they wouldn't know what form that would take, and I had know way of knowing if they'd believed Seven or not. They might have suspected that it was all a trick of some kind, only time would tell.

If I were in command of the Wraith I'd want to know about the advanced powers in this galaxy that could pose a threat to my control of their new feeding ground, and I suspected that the Hives would have sent out some hyperspace capable scout craft out into this galaxy, but I didn't have to hunt them down. I felt sure that once the Hives were dealt with the locals should be able to manage any remaining Wraith.

"Can we beat them?" she asked.

These Wraith were employing jamming so I couldn't just beam over a couple of bombs, but it hardly mattered as they were no match for the Thunderchild.

"Yes" I told Carter "And once I've destroyed the Hives I can take out any Wraith who on the planet. Then I'll contact the SGC, which seems to be intact as far as I can tell, and inform of the golden city-ship, so that they can use it to prevent further attacks. Plus it can serve as base of operations for the rebuilding efforts".

If handled well by the right people it could even become the capital of a united world government, but that wasn't my concern. I only cared about the city-ship because it only existed in a few of the realities that Seven had so far scouted and I needed more ZPMs. The golden city-ship had twelve, so I could take three without compromising Earth's ability to defend itself.

While I did want to help this version of Earth I didn't have the resources to aid them in the long run, so all I could do was destroy the invaders and give the Tauri of this dimension the means to protect themselves in the future. I couldn't even save the humans who'd been brought up to the Hives because these Hive ships had ways to prevent transporters from getting a lock on anything inside them. I would have kill thousands of humans in order to save millions.

"Now if you'll excuse me I need to use the chair room" I said.

I didn't wait to be excused as I didn't require permission, and I would need to the chair as this operation would require precise use of the beaming technology as well as the weapon systems, and possibly communications as well.

(Line Break)

Stargate Command. Alternate Earth

"The Wraith ships just blew up" the Samantha Carter of this universe reported to General Jack O'Neill, who in this reality had remained at Stargate Command "And we're picking up a new ship, it might be an Ancient vessel".

While the Wraith had destroyed most of the satellites that used to orbit the planet there were still a couple of satellites up there, spy ones, and through them the leader of the SGC was able to get an idea of what was going on up above.

"Is it the Orion?" he asked.

He was referring to the Aurora-class that had been under the control of the Atlantis expedition.

"I don't think so" reported Colonel Carter "The last message we got from Atlantis said that the Orion had been destroyed in the battle when it tried to unleash a salvo of drones and lost all power".

Which had made the advanced warship easy pickings for the Wraith Hive ships, and unfortunately that vessel had been the only craft under Tauri command that had the fire power to take on a Wraith Hive ship. The Daedalus hadn't faired much better and neither had the other Earth made space vessels.

The Wraith had used the knowledge they'd stolen from the Atlantis expedition to plan their attack on Earth very well. The two Hive ships had been able to bombard the planet in such a way as to cause mass panic for the population without destroying too many of the humans they'd wished to feed upon.

Once the nations of the world had been crippled the Wraith had begun sending down the darts to begin harvesting the population, taking thousands of people in each raid. Many darts were shot down, but this seemed to be part of the Wraith's plans as when resistance appeared and struck at the hostile aliens one of the orbiting Hive Ships took out the defenders.

Cheyenne Mountain, and perhaps some other places that were staying silent, was an exception to this. Yet even now it was at risk to failing to the enemy, who had recently brought in more of their warriors and the SGC didn't have the numbers to drive the aliens out of the levels they'd taken.

Now things seemed to be changing. An unknown vessel, possibly an ally of Earth's had just appeared and blasted the two Hives ships without warning with what Jack O'Neill could assume were big honking space guns.

"Call them up" ordered the General "I want to know if they're friend or foe. Maybe that woman who contacted us really was able to send help".

All they got in reply was a text message telling them that the Wraith threat would soon be dealt with. Clearly whomever was in charge of this new ship was too busy chat. O'Neill could respect that, but it did leave him worried about the intentions of this unknown party.

"The Wraith on the surface are gone" someone reported.

Carter brought up a view of the entrance to the mountain. The Wraith had been marshalling their forces up there and preparing for a major attack, and now they'd simply vanished. The Colonel rewinded the video footage so that they could find out what happened.

"That's Asgard beaming technology" the Carter of this reality said.

In the past members of SG1 had seen the Jaffa forces of an invading Goa'uld simply vanish as beams emitted by an Asgard mothership made them vanish. They'd seen that happen again to the Wraith outside of the mountain.

"This might be good time to bring battle to the Wraith within the SGC" advised Teal'c.

The Jaffa had returned to Earth upon learning that the world of his friend would be in danger and had sworn not to leave until the Wraith were driven off the planet. That seemed to be something that would happen very soon.

"Won't our new friends just beam them all away?" Daniel Jackson wondered.

Samantha Carter shook her head.

"With have jammers inside the base to prevent that from happening" she explained.

Ironically the jammers had been set up to prevent people inside the base from getting beamed away. Now it was preventing the SGC from being secured.

"Something is beaming in on the surface" a tech reported.

Everyone looked at the monitors and saw that it was it fact somethings that were beaming down not someones.

"Are those robots?" Jack asked.

That was what they seemed to be. Simple biped machines with weapons that looked deadly enough. There were a lot of them and they were heading into the mountain. The human sized robots weren't the only thing to beam down, larger robots soon appeared, they however didn't enter the mountain, but took up guard positions.

O'Neill wasn't book smart like Carter or Jackson, but he was clever enough to understand that the larger robots were in place incase the Wraith were able to drive the robots out of the mountain. If that happened the big bots would cover the smaller ones if they retreated.

"Not a bad idea" Carter said to her friends "The Wraith soldiers use stun weapons, which won't have much effect on a robot, and they can't be fed on either".

Teal'c, who was in full Jaffa armour, picked up his staff weapon from were it had been leaning against a wall.

"Perhaps we should counter-attack now" he suggested "Trapping the Wraith between these robots and our forces".

O'Neill liked the idea, but he wasn't sure that whomever was controlling these robots was a friend or not.

"Nice idea T" he said "But we don't know if they'll come after us or not once they're done with the Wraith. We need to be prepared for that".

Teal'c nodde to signal his agreement.

"Then I will join with the warriors of the Tauri in case of attack" he said.

He was just about to leave when a hologram showed up, at first the image, which was of a human, didn't speak, but soon the image began to explain who was behind the defeat of the Wraith, and how else this new group could do in order to help.

While O'Neill wasn't sure if he could trust this Gothic person, he didn't really have much choice, and even if this saviour wasn't trustworthy there wasn't much they could do about it either so they'd just have to hope that this guy was on their side.