Mirvik (Yet another Siphon story line)

[SiphonTalvesh]

Yeah, so there's another 'book' on the way here. I've decided to break this one up into parts, with a second thread for comments only. I expect this one to be just as long as the Ori one was when it's all finished, and we all know it took me over a year to write that one. Well, it's been more than a year now, and this one is only 1/4 of the way done if that. I'll be posting parts up as they are done after the first five are up. Currently, there are 4 parts to this that are done. I will post one today, one tomorrow, one EARLY Tuesday morning, part 4 on Wednesday Night, and Part 5 when it is finished, likely Thursday. After that, updates will occur as they are completed.

DISCLAIMER: MGM Studios own Stargate and all references to it. This work is purely a fan written fiction, and is in no way intended to infringe upon the MGM trademark or Copyrights of the above mentioned series.


And now, on to the good stuff:




Part 1: Mirvik's Arrival:

Mirvik Nasholn had once been a high ranking member of the Wraith rebels. No longer though. The incident that had changed him forever had cost him that spot. He reflected quietly upon what had happened for a moment. It had been a year or so ago, though time was irrelevant to a being that could live forever. Mirvik had been assigned to run a group of the rebels into the High Command's territory and conduct a bombing run. What they hadn't know was that the Command had been working with the humans of the Pegasus galaxy to create a retro-virus that would effectively alter the rebel's DNA all at
once and make them like the Command, in an attempt to deter them from their beliefs. Mirvik had been unfortunate enough to have his dart shot down by one of the humans, and had been rendered unable to move from the crash. Had he been able to move, he wouldn't be alive today. All Wraith rebels were taught that if you were shot down, you activated the self-destruct so the Command couldn't interrogate you. Mirvik hadn't been able to activate it, and had been captured by the humans and the Command. He had been forcibly injected with the retro-virus, but it hadn't worked like the idiots had thought it would. Instead of removing only one flaw of his Iratius DNA, the damn thing had removed all of it, making him a pathetic human. Mirvik hadn't remembered much for a while, but had ultimately remembered who he was, and had managed to escape, slowly returning to his wraith state. He had returned to the rebels, expecting to at the worst be demoted, but had been met with hostility the second he entered their space. The rebels he had once called family had tried, unsuccessfully, to kill him. Enraged, he had killed half of the guards in his way and exploded out of their space with a stolen hive ship. Mirvik had spent the past year stealing samples of various isotopes and of the retro-virus that had been used on him. Finally, he had his answer.

Mirvik had done the impossible. He had refined the retro-virus to remove his need to feed on humans, but had also refined it enough to allow him to keep all the strengths of a wraith, without actually having their DNA, or Human DNA. He himself was a completely unique species now. The details were difficult to explain, but Mirvik didn't have any need to explain what he was any longer to anybody. He only answered to himself, and all he cared about now was revenge. With further refinement, he had created numerous hybrids like himself, making him only one of a new species. He was not stupid however, and had designed it so that none of his creations could ever turn on him. Now, one year after the massive betrayal that had forced him to become a one man army, he had a hybrid army of his own. Stronger than both wraith and humans, a formidable army that could operate wraith technology. In the year he had been working on the second phase of his plan, he and his army had stolen an additional twenty hive ships, making the number they had twenty one now. A few upgrades here and there from stolen technology, and his hive ships were now invincible to all known forms of wraith weaponry. Now however, Mirvik had finally accomplished half of what he had set out to do. He had created an isotope that would kill humans and wraith alike, and had made certain it would kill every single one it came into contact with of those species. Mirvik had enhanced this isotope to be a potent killer. Although it would kill slowly and painfully, it would kill any human or wraith it came into contact with. It's method of transmission was strange however. Anyone who was infected with it would spread it by simply being on the same planet as an uninfected person, and the isotope took between a day to a week to begin to show it's symptoms, plenty of time for an infected person to spread it far and wide. The only step left now was for Mirvik to find a suitable host for it, possibly one that would be affected by it, but might take longer to show the signs. For that, he knew the best way to spread it throughout both galaxies he hated was to find two hosts. Mirvik had released the isotope directly into the human populations of the Pegasus galaxy, specifically where the rebels were likely to be feeding on. It had begun to spread like wild fire through the galaxy, and Mirvik himself was even surprised at how effective and fast it was. The current death toll had been well into the billions already amongst the wraith and human populations combined. Mirvik had watched as the rebels, who had begun to finally outnumber the council's forces, had suffered the largest losses thus far, over half of their fleet decimated. He had finally decided to help his work spread to the council, and had purposely damaged a rebel ship and disabled their self-destructs, and allowed a council ship to capture them after infecting that ship with the isotope. He had laughed quite a bit when he had heard the council believed that whatever disease was afflicting them had come from that rebel ship, and they had begun actively destroying rebel ships at every chance they had, taking no prisoners. Little did they know it was
already too late for them all, the isotope did not fade, it would continue to spread until it had nothing to feed on in the galaxy, at which point it would become dormant. Now however, Mirvik knew it was time to begin in the Milky Way, and he had set a course there.

Mirvik's ship emerged from hyper-space not too far from the planet called Earth. Mirvik knew that the planet had been at one time known to have Tiberion ships orbiting it, so he had made sure to remain well out of sensor range. It was likely the Tiberion's, as warlike as he had heard them to be, were scouting defenses of the planet in preparation for a full scale invasion. His isotope would probably help them, but he didn't care. If the Tiberion's sped up the process he didn't care, for after all, once he had finished his work, and upgraded the way he wanted to, not even they would be able to stand up to his power. Mirvik had taken great pains to avoid any chance of being spotted with this, and he had run sensor sweeps of the planet to find the perfect host. He had stumbled by pure luck across a half human, half nymph life reading near a central focus point of human activity. A further reading had yielded a female with those life signs, which was perfect for him. A quick set of his beaming technology, stolen from the Draque, and he had a lock on a spot where the female was. Taking a recall device, he pushed a button, and he vanished in the snapping green light of the transporter.


Anastasia had just returned from the town, carrying new clothing for herself and her girlfriend Zaleia. A sudden hum in the air caught her attention, and she whipped around to find yet another one of Talok's people not too far from her. At least, she thought he was a wraith, he looked different somehow. Anastasia had long gotten over the shock of the bug men, it had become normal for her, and she had realized that Talok would never hurt her or anyone in the school for that matter. However, what happened next startled even her. The bug man walked up to her, words seeming to form on his lips, surely about to ask her where to find something, when she suddenly felt a rough hand close over her arm, and something cold lash into her skin, breaking it. The pain she felt was horrible, and she dropped the new clothes she had been carrying, crying out in pain as the bastard withdrew a strange looking device from her arm. Mentally she screamed at the sight of her own blood, wondering what the hell he had stabbed her for, and unknowingly sending that scream to her brother, Shade.


Shade had been trying to relax along with Sho, cuddling close to her, both fully clothed when his peaceful thoughts were broken by the soul shattering scream of his sister in pain, and trouble. Fear resonated through the scream as well as pain, and Shade bolted upright, nearly tossing Sho to the floor from the abrupt move. A growl escaping from his lips as he headed for the door was all Sho needed to see, and she knew that something had happened to his sister. Wordless, they raced through the halls to get to her.

After only a few moments, Shade and Sho rounded the corner, and spotted the device with blood on it in the Wraith's hands, and Anastasia laying on the floor, not moving at all, paralyzed with fear. Shade's voice turned demonic as he practically bellowed, "What the hell have you done to my sister you bug faced freak?"

Mirvik looked up, a bit surprised to see a demon in front of him, and let out a chuckle. "Only what your entire species deserves foolish demon, well, I should say hers." He pointed towards Sho, and then added, "enjoy what time you have left traitorous scum, I will revel in the knowledge I will certainly outlive both of these bitches, and every living thing on this world!" With the last words, he tossed something in Sho's direction. Another device of some kind, forcing Shade to turn his attention away from the wraith hybrid.


Sho for her part flung her hands up, creating a small wind tunnel in front of her, stopping the object in mid air, however upon doing so, the device exploded, sending her crashing into the wall, stunned. As Shade turned to the wraith that did this, it spoke again.

"Know this, I am Mirvik, and I will rejoice upon your deaths." With that, before Shade could stop him, he vanished in a flicker of green Draque light, leaving a very pissed, and confused Shade to take care of both his lover, and his sister.

Shade moved towards Sho first, almost torn between her and his sister, and was saved from having to choose when Sho started to get up on her own and said, "I'm alright, check on your sister." Shade nodded once and rushed to Anastasia's side, and knelt down beside her. Turning her over, he noticed that the spot where she was injected seemed to have swollen rapidly, but other than that she appeared to be fine, save the fact she was out cold. Shade knew that he should get her back to his room and make sure she was alright, and gently lifted her into his arms, carrying her. Sho followed him to their room, and soon enough he had laid Anastasia on the bed, dressing the wound inflicted upon her by the wraith. A thought occurred to him as he suddenly realized that the wraith, Mirvik he had called himself, hadn't seemed to be a pure wraith, but something different. After a time, the silence was broken by Sho.

"Is she alright Shade?" A worried look crossed her face and she added, "I wonder what he meant by what my race deserves? Creepy though, and that device was strange too."

Shade nodded at her and said, "I think she's alright, but I can't be certain. It doesn't appear to have had any nasty effects on her, but that could change. I don't think any of the doctors here in the school can be of any help though. We need to get a hold of Siphon, and fast, let him know what's happened here."

Sho nodded, and without any further words headed over to the dresser and retrieved the long range communications crystal Siphon had given them months ago. A few pushes and she finally got the device to work, and began to speak into it.




The Kara cruised along the hyper-space tunnel carved through space silently. Siphon sat, relaxed back into his chair reflecting on how things had gone in the Ori Galaxy. Siphon and the others had, at the request of the Doci, returned to their galaxy to help them rebuild a society after they had seen the shocking truth about their 'gods'. Siphon had taken his wife, Daina, along with him, and now that the hardest parts of the rebuilding was over with, they had both been quite eager to withdraw and head back to Earth for some much needed rest and relaxation. Daina was sleeping in their quarters still, and Siphon was just running through a few things before turning in himself. His peaceful work was interrupted by the chime of an incoming transmission. Glancing over at the board, he quickly realized it was from Shade and Sho back on Earth, and it was marked urgent. Standing up and moving over to the proper console he said to himself, "what the hell? Now what?"

Sho's image came across the screen and she spoke. "Siphon, it's Sho and Shade. Something has happened here. Shade's sister was attacked, by a, well, I'm not entirely sure what he was. Seemed to be a wraith hybrid of some kind. Hang on, Shade wants to say something." A beat passed and Shade's face took up the screen.

"Yeah, Anastasia was attacked and injected with something by that guy. He called himself Mirvik, no last name, just the first name. Also, he tossed a device at Sho that exploded when she stopped it. We don't know what it was, but the injury on my sister's arm has swollen quite bad, which I'll take probably isn't a good thing."

Siphon frowned, not recognizing the name, but worried that someone would so boldly attack someone on Earth. His features hardened as he said, "No, it probably isn't good. I'll have a look at her when we get back, but we'll be at least another two days to get back, we're just getting back from the Ori Galaxy. I can try to coax more power out of the drive, but the best I can manage is two days flat. I'm sorry, I wish we could get back faster, but with the destruction of the super gate that isn't possible."

Shade nodded, wanting to scream bloody murder, but knew that Siphon wouldn't lie to him. Two days it would be then. "Alright, I'll try to keep you updated as much as possible on things if I can. I just hope that nothing bad happens."

Siphon nodded, understanding how frustrated Shade must feel. "That makes two of us. As soon as we are in range I'll be in touch with the wraith and find out what they know of this name if anything. It's too bad they haven't upgraded to the crystals yet. It'll be another day or so before we're in range to hail them at all. I'll check in with you once I have spoken to them."

Shade nodded, not looking happy at all but accepting the facts as they were. "Alright, I'll be in touch if anything else happens." With that his image winked out.

Siphon sat there for a few minutes, then went to the room where Daina was to tell her about what had happened.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Mirvik (Yet another Siphon story line)

Part 2: The Outbreak.



Sho sat on the bed alongside Shade, concerned about his sister greatly. While she seemed to be sleeping there was something unnatural about it. She ran a hand over his shoulder, trying to help him calm down. A brief brush of her hand over Anastasia's forehead though made her heart jump into her throat. The poor girl was burning hot, had to be around a 103 fever easily, which for a nymph, could be deadly. "Shade, we need to get her into water now, she's burning up."

Shade snapped up, and ran his own hand over Anastasia's forehead, and his eyes widened at the heat radiating from her body. "Alright, I'll take her out to the lake. Can you go tell Zaleia about what's happened and then bring her to the lake?"

Sho nodded once, not needing to say anything before going out the door. Shade meanwhile picked up his sister, and took off out of the school, heading for the lake. "Hold on sis, we'll have you cooled off in no time."

Sho raced through the halls, dodging students as she headed for Anastasia's room, hoping to catch Zaleia before she headed out. As she turned the corner, she almost ran over Barry and Cat. Shooting an apologetic look at them, she continued on, leaving the warlock and his sister to stare after her. Soon enough, Sho arrived at the room, and knocked.



Barry and Cat had just rounded the corner when Sho nearly ran them flat into the ground, and had jumped out of the way. Shaking their heads, they kept on going. Turning to her brother, Cat simply said, "wow, she was in a bit of a hurry wasn't she? Wonder what's got her in such a race?"

Barry shook his head and replied, "who knows, I just hope for once it isn't another apocalypse again. We've had too many lately, and while the last one was sort of fun, we could all use a break for once."

Cat just smiled slightly and kept walking, passing by several students along the way, almost bumping into several in the suddenly crowded hallway. Moving swiftly she avoided the student, but he bumped into an unsuspecting Barry.

Scowling, Barry mumbled an apology to the student, who for his part, muttered his own apology and kept on going, evidently not wanting to stick around the two of them. Continuing down the halls, he and Cat eventually reached the gym. "Finally, thought with all those students running about we'd never get here."

Cat just nodded, looking forward to working out some, and pushed open the doors, only to find the gym had about thirty people in it. Scanning through the crowd she spotted a single familiar face. It belonged to Ian, and he seemed to be working out with the weights, having finally recovered fully from the burn wounds he had. A quick smile and nod, returned by him and Cat continued on with Barry, finding a pair of machines for them to use. It wasn't what they had wanted, but it would have to do for now. The two of them began their workout, completely unaware of what was happening to them.



Zaleia had just stepped out of the shower and gotten dressed when the knock on her door sounded. She frowned slightly, knowing it wouldn't be Anastasia, so it had to be someone else. Walking to the door, she opened it a crack and spotted her sister, Sho. Breaking into a smile she spoke, "oh, hey there sis, what's up?" Her tone went a bit dark when she saw the look on Sho's face.

Sho quickly gave her sister a hug, then with a grim look began to tell her of what was going on. "Zale, theres been a bit of an incident. Anastasia was attacked by some wraith hybrid kind of thing, he injected her with something, and now she's burning hot with a fever. Shade has taken her to the lake to try and cool her off, and he wanted me to tell you immediately and get you to come down to the lake with us to be there for her."

Zaleia was half way down the hall before Sho even realized she had already started off. Turning back to her, Zaleia flatly said, "what are we waiting for, let's go dammit." A quick nod as a reply, and the two bolted off towards the lake.

After about ten minutes they reached the lake shore, and made their way over to Shade and his sister. Wading into the water, they could tell he had just dumped her into the water, not caring about the clothing she was wearing getting wet and ruined. Shade looked up at the two sisters and his face was grim. "Something isn't right here, there is no sign of infection in that wound, and even still, it's too fast for it to have gotten this bad. Something very unnatural is going on here, and I don't know if she has two days to wait."

Sho hovered over the water near the three, trying her best to comfort Shade and be optimistic. "She's a tough woman Shade, I'm sure she'll be alright." Deep down though she wasn't so sure, Anastasia looked very pale, and the water didn't seem to be having much of an effect on her at all. Still, she had her hopes, and she wasn't about ready to give up hope.

Zaleia didn't even bother to wait, she waded in beside Shade to help him with Anastasia. Her hand brushed against Anastasia's forehead and she hissed at the heat radiating from it. She was burning hot, very hot. Zaleia motioned for Sho to check again.

Sho placed a hand against Anastasia's forehead again, and her heart sank even as she recoiled from the heat. The poor girl's temperature had risen for sure despite the water. Sho shook her head and knew she had to tell Shade. "Shade, the water isn't having any effect on her. Her temperature is still rising."

Shade felt of her forehead and shook his head. "She isn't gonna be able to last two days like this. Dammit!" He slammed a fist into the ground, knowing he was completely helpless to do anything for her. "I'm gonna try calling Siphon again, see if there is anything he can suggest." Pulling out the crystal again, he fiddles with it for a few seconds before figuring out how to activate it properly.



Ian had finished his workout in the gym and decided to go grab a bite to eat from the cafeteria. Heading out with a wave to Barry and Cat, he started walking down the halls towards the cafeteria. As he passed by some of the students in the halls, he noticed a few of them coughing loudly and staggering. Seemed that the flu was going around yet again. Ian wondered if they had even bothered going to see the new nurse that had taken over since the departure of their last one. Ian himself really didn't care for the new nurse, he seemed like a total moron, but there was no denying he was good at what he did, just his bedside manner was, well, non existent really. Shrugging it off, Ian continued down the hall, not noticing one of the students suddenly clutch at her side and fall to the floor, or the ensuing rush of aid that followed. He was too far down the hall to have seen it, and even if he had, he wouldn't have been able to do much for her anyway. Soon enough though, Ian had found the cafeteria. As he entered he spotted Elissia and some other guy were eating at the same table. Strange, thought Ian. He hadn't pinned Elissia as the type to be very social, then again, there was a lot he didn't know of some of the newer people in the school. He paused though as he entered the pantry, for inside was a single female. Not just any female though, oh no, that would be too much to ask of. Ian stared face to face with what he assumed was a wraith female. Ian had never met a female wraith before, and so this
was his first time, but he couldn't help but think for a brief moment that if she lost some of the more defining features of her bug heritage that she would be an extremely attractive person. He started to back up to leave, but she spotted him.

"Oh, hi there. I'm Narlina. I don't think I've met you yet though, are you a friend of Talok and Siphon?"

Ian instantly relaxed a bit more. If she was friends with Siphon and Talok then she had to be alright, the two of them were quite adept at finding very caring and trustworthy people, even if those people did turn out to not be human at all. "Ah, yes I'm a friend of theirs, name is Ian. I didn't realize that the pantry was occupied though, so I apologize if I am interrupting something." Ian stopped to sniff at the air, the smell of something wonderful cooking. "Oh, what are you cooking anyway?"

Narlina smiled at him and replied, "Your not bothering me at all. Oh, chicken teriyaki I think Talok said it was called." A beat and she asked, "would you like some when it's done? I think I made too much for one person to eat by themselves and I don't want to waste it."

Ian had the impression that Narlina was almost hitting on him, but the food smelled so good that his mouth was watering. In the end, hunger won out over him being cautious. So what if she was subtly hitting on him? Nothing said he couldn't just tell her he wasn't interested in that way, that he would rather just be friends with her after all. Nodding once he said, "alright sure, if that isn't going to be a problem for you. Wouldn't want to take good food from you if your hungry."

She just smiled and said, "no, it's perfectly fine. I made too much anyway. It should be ready in another ten minutes or so. If you want, go have a seat out there and when it's ready I'll bring it out and we can talk while we eat."

Nodding once he thanked her and then heads for a seat out in the cafeteria, wondering just what he'd gotten himself into. As he sat down, he noticed Matt and Roger off to one side, just exiting the cafeteria. As was usual, Roger seemed to be joking about something to Matt, and Matt looked like he wanted to kill Roger. Yup, things were back to normal alright. About damn time too in his opinion. The whole crap that Siphon had mentioned to him about the Ori had been taxing. Wondering if even Siphon himself would be able to protect them against such a powerful enemy, preparing for the possibility of having to deal with a ground incursion should the Ori actually break through the new Antarctic defense platform and the Orbital fleet had been a total nightmare for him. He suspected that even Siphon hadn't been certain if the Antarctic defense platform would be sufficient enough to protect them, although it was unlikely the Alveran would have ever admitted it. Ian had to say, Siphon had changed quite a bit since he had suffered the fling through time and aged considerably. Not only was he more laid back and quiet, but he seemed much more confident in taking the time to consider options over rushing in was the better course of action for most things. Secretly though, Ian kind of missed the old Siphon, but also was glad for his new outlook on things. His thoughts were broken though by Narlina arriving with the wonderful smelling Chicken on a plate.

"Here we are, it's all ready for us to chow down on." Narlina seemed quite happy about this, although Ian suspected it had more to do with the fact that she had made it herself than the actual meal. She set the plate down in front of him, then sat down herself.

"It smells great thats for sure." Ian picked up a forkful of the chicken and put it into his mouth, eyes widening at how good it really did taste. Chewing for a moment before swallowing it, he then said, "tastes even better too. Very nice I must say."

She practically beamed with a smile as she answered, "I'm glad you like it. Honestly, I wasn't sure if it would be as good as I had heard it would be. This is my first time ever cooking anything here on Earth. Your ingredients and cooking supplies are so different from what I am used to back on my home planet."

Ian had to suppress the shock he felt. She had never cooked anything here on Earth, yet she knew what some of the foods were? It had to have been because she had seen someone else make them and tasted them, or that Talok and Siphon had shown her some of the foods. Resolved to find out more about her now, since it looked like he'd be dealing with her for a while if she was staying, Ian began to chat about just random things with her. Out of the corner of his eye, he barely noticed Elissia get up from the table, leaving the young man sitting there by himself. So it seemed that maybe she had finally had enough of talking for one day and was leaving. Ian smiled inwardly, and then went back to talking with Narlina, who he now knew to be a Hive Queen, whatever the bloody heck that was.


Elissia had finished eating and said goodbye to the young man who seemed to be infatuated with her. While she wasn't anti-social by any means, she wasn't looking for a relationship just yet. She still had a job to do, a being to track down, and that was her primary focus. Unfortunately, the thing had been exceedingly difficult to pin down and find. She still hadn't found it, though she knew it was somewhere around this area still. Deciding that her time would be best spent going to the gym and using one of the punching bags, she headed out of the cafeteria to follow up on that thought. As she walked down the halls and turned a corner though, she spotted a young woman who seemed to be quite disoriented. Tilting her head and opening her mouth to say something, Elissia had to move fast when the woman simply teetered over backwards and collapsed. Moving as fast as she could, Elissia barely managed to catch the poor woman from hitting the floor hard. One look and she could tell why the woman had just dropped, she was out cold. Knowing people didn't just faint without a good reason, she lifted her as best as she could to take her to the infirmary, however her eyes darted to a strange legion on her leg. Taking a closer look, the legion seemed to be oozing blood and something else, and the poor thing seemed to be running a high fever. "Oh just great, she's probably got Ebola or something." She shook her head and took off towards the infirmary, knowing the nurse would be able to tell her more about what was wrong, and that there was a sink there where she could wash the blood and whatever the yellowish liquid was off of her.

After several minutes she arrived at the infirmary and placed the woman on one of the beds, then went into the back and summoned the nurse. With a grumble the guy got up out of his chair and walked over, muttering something under his breath. Elissia resisted the urge to pop the guy in the back of the head, knowing that wouldn't help things any. His new flashy name tag indicated he was nurse Robert, but Elissia really didn't care what his name was right now, all she wanted to know was what was going on. She pointed out the legion on the woman's leg, and told him of the fever.

"So, what is it, Ebola or something nurse?"

Robert looked over the legion and took the woman's temperature, keeping quiet as the thermometer said she was running 103.8 degrees. He shook his head and finally replied, "no, I don't think so. Frankly, I don't know whats wrong with her at all. I'm going to call for an ambulance to come look her over, because I don't think I will be able to treat her appropriately here. I suggest you clean off the blood and puss from your arms and then head out of here. The less people in the room the better right now. Let me know if you start feeling sick though, since you had contact with her directly." He cut off as Michael, another of the students poked his head in.

"Hey nurse, I'm here to let you know we've got about ten people that are just laying down in the halls, out like a light and we can't wake them up." Michael looked at Elissia, not knowing who she was immediately, but then again he usually kept to himself as much as possible. Internally though the dark hunter was screaming something about foul play in his head, but Michael tuned it out as he generally tried to do, figuring that the hunter was just trying to be annoying again. Knock it off already, just shut up will you? Thanks. Thinking a moment he added, "oh, and one of the ladies out there said that at least three of them felt hot to the touch."

Robert and Elissia shared a quick knowing look. Whatever was going on with the woman she had just brought in, it seemed she wasn't the only case now, and that couldn't bode well.

"I'll be right there." Turning to Elissia he said, "ah, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name Miss."

Elissia resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him calling her Miss. "It's Elissia." She quickly spelled it out for him.

"Alright. Look, change of plans. I'm going to go have a quick look at these other students and then I'll call for an ambulance for them all. Make that a couple of ambulances at this rate. I need you to stay here with her for now, as soon as Michael shows me where the others are I will send him back to you. If anything happens while I'm gone that I should know about, send Michael to come get me, got it?"

Elissia nods. "Got it." Inwardly she cursed, this was not a good thing, and this was definitely ruining her day, but she wouldn't just walk away from someone who needed help, or defy someone that had asked for help, no matter if she thought he was a total asshole or not.

Nodding once back at her and grabbing a first aid kit, Robert headed out the door with Michael, leaving Elissia to silently fume and worry about what was going on. Her mind was racing over possibilities. Possessions gone wrong, possessions that weren't completed yet that she couldn't sense, even thoughts of a demonic induced plague. She could not have known how close she was to the truth with her last thought, although had she known the truth, she surely would have told whoever said it to her that they were nuts.


Barry and Cat had just finished their workout, and the gym hadn't thinned out any, so they decided to just head back to Barry's room and catch up on some reading. As they headed down the halls though, they came across nurse Robert and Michael tending to some of the students in the halls. From the looks of it, they had just collapsed and weren't moving at all, save for the irregular breathing that stated they were at least alive. Barry looked at Cat and he muttered, "oh, just fucking great, just what we needed, more shit to happen."

Cat shot him a withering look, wanting to know what was going on here. "Barry be nice, these people didn't ask for whatever has happened to them." Her eyes wandered over to where one student was bent over another, a female. From the look on the guy's face, she was probably his girlfriend.

Robert looked up to see the two of them and called out. "Hey you two, over here, I could use some help moving them to the infirmary."

It was Barry's turn to shoot his sister a look as he muttered, "oh great, now we're on the damn body carrying patrol."

Cat just rolled her eyes, both at Barry's comment and the fact that they had been enlisted for this. "Just shut up and lets get this over with as fast as we can." Then to the nurse, "alright. What the hell happened here though?"

Robert just looked blankly and stated, "I have no idea, but I'm going to be calling an ambulance to take them into the town hospital. Not much I can do for them here without knowing exactly whats wrong, and I can't find that out unless I can get blood work done, since they seem to be beyond the normal flu symptoms I'd expect to see, but I can't do that because I don't have the right equipment for that."

Cat shot a look at Barry, and she saw the same concern in his eyes. What the hell could act so fast that it would drop this many people so fast, and get the nurse calling for blood work? Cat had a suspicion that Barry thought it was magic of some kind, but she wasn't so sure. Of course magic could do this, but if that was the case, why only those ten people and not the others around them yet?

Barry shot a look back at her, his eyes saying they would discuss it later. Right now it seemed they had more important things to attend to. With that, Barry and Cat followed Robert's instructions and got to work.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Mirvik (Yet another Siphon story line)

Part 3: Grim Situation.



Siphon had just finished telling Daina what was going on when the communications console lit up again like a damn Christmas tree. "Oh great, now what?" Walking over to it he noticed it was again from Shade. "Ah shit, that can't be good coming this soon." Siphon hit a button and Shade's face took up the screen. "I'm going to take it you aren't calling me with good news bro, whats wrong?"

Worry all over his face, Shade responded, "Anastasia's gotten worse. We put her in the lake to try and cool her off, but the water has had no effect on her. She's gotten a higher temperature and doesn't seem to be absorbing the water into her body at all. I don't think she has two days at this rate, we need to find something to do, and now."

Siphon considered a few thoughts. "Even if I amplified power to the hyper-drive, the best I could manage by overtaxing it would be to shave the time down to a day. There's no way to shave any more off of that, and even if I do that, there's a good possibility it would burn out the drive half way through."

Shade seemed frustrated, but suddenly Sho cut him off.

"Siphon, what about the Stargate? I know you said the super gate was destroyed, but what about the smaller, normal Stargate? You had said that each of the Alveran ships were going to be carrying one a few months ago. Could we somehow get an Alveran ship to help us with that?"

Siphon stopped for a moment. While it was true all Alveran ships were now carrying Stargates that had been harvested from planets that could no longer support life, the power requirements were enormous to dial out of the galaxy. Unless one used a Z.P.M. "I suppose it's possible yes, but the Kara would have to drop out of hyper-space and get a fix on where we are now, and that could take a little bit. Your best bet is to try and find Talok then and ask him to use the gate on the Daina Eil'Mori. Tell him to hook up one of the Z.P.M's to the DHD and then once that's done, hail me again and I'll read off the symbols you'll need to establish a connection to him."

Sho nodded, making a note of it as well as making sure Shade knew. "Got it, we'll be in touch." The communication cut out, and Siphon was left to drop the ship out of hyper-space.

Turning to Daina he said, "look sharp, we're going to be having inbound travelers soon." He walked over to a console and dropped the ship out of hyper-space. Taking a moment to calculate their position, he was somewhat amused to discover they were just at the outer fringe of the Ori galaxy. "Damn, another five minutes and we'd have been in the void between this galaxy and the next. Thankfully we're still in the Ori Galaxy, which makes triangulating our position much easier."

Continuing his work, he soon figured out where they were, and sat back into the chair, Daina slipping into it beside him.

"What do you think, can you help her?"

"I hope so. I should be at least able to heal her and restore her ability to absorb water, but other than that, I won't know until I actually see her and can scan her."

"Let's hope then that she'll be able to hold out until she gets here."

"Indeed. I'd better go and prepare the med bay." Siphon stood and headed for the medical bay, Daina hot on his heels in pursuit, wanting to help.



Barry and Cat had helped move all the unconscious students to the school infirmary, and were both quite tired. Cat nodded her head at Barry, who turned and asked Robert, "do you need us for anything else now?"

Robert shook his head. "No, you've done all you can do for now, it's up to getting the ambulance's here now. I'm afraid that whatever is wrong with them is beyond my ability to treat here."

Barry nodded once and then motioned for Cat to follow. Barry didn't really like the guy, but in this case he felt kind of bad, and not only for him but for the students as well. He had to wonder though what was going on that the nurse had openly admitted he couldn't help them here, although Barry suspected that he didn't even know himself.

Cat followed her brother out, just as stunned as he was about what had been said. "So, where to then?"

Barry just looked at her and then finally said, "well I don't know about you, but I'm heading back to my room to check up on a few things. I'm going to try a spell to see if something magical is going on here."

Cat nodded, not really wanting to just be couped up in a room again. "Well I think I'm going to head off and maybe go into town for some new clothing. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

Barry just nodded, already lost in thought as he turned to walk away. "Alright, just be careful." He headed off for his room, never once considering the possibility that it was a virus or something, and that Cat leaving the school for town might spread the condition even further.

Cat simply nodded back at Barry and then headed off out of the school. Passing through the forest first to cool off by the lake shore, she walked past Kyo's house in the woods. She smiled slightly as she saw little Karen playing outside, and there was Motoko not too far away from her, and Kyo could be seen meditating quietly under a pair of trees. As she walked past, Karen spotted her and waves, and Motoko looked up, spotting Cat. Motioning her arm in a wave to say hello, Cat decided to head over and see how they were doing.

Motoko looked up and spotted the young woman coming over to them. Briefly assessing her, she realized the young woman seems friendly and isn't meaning hostile intentions, so she smiled and said, "hi there, I'm Motoko." As Cat came closer though, she finally recognized her. "Oh! Hi Cat, I'm sorry I didn't recognize you at first, how are you?"

Cat smiled, a sudden wave of dizziness washing over her as well as fatigue. It passed quickly however, and wasn't obvious enough for the three of them to see. “I'm doing well, what are you folks up to?”

“We're just relaxing and letting Karen play for a bit, where are you off to?”

“Just heading into town for a little bit to see if the stores have anything new.”

“Sounds like a plan, have fun with that.”

Cat started to reply, but suddenly her voice failed her, as well as her legs. She tried to say something to the three of them, but found herself laying on the floor suddenly, her vision swimming.

Karen grabbed at Motoko, tugging on her after having seen this, and the older woman turned around again, spotting Cat teeter forward onto her face. “Kyo!”

He snapped awake quickly, looking over and spotting Cat on the floor. “What the hell happened?”

She shot him a look, then said, “I'm not sure, one moment we were talking and she was about to head into town, the next she had fallen face first onto the floor. We need to get her back to the school and have her looked at.”

“Alright, I'll carry her, you get Karen, and let's go.”

She nodded quietly, concerned about what had happened even as Kyo gently picked Cat up into his arms, and then they took off for the school, not realizing that whatever had caused this might be contagious.


It had taken ten minutes to get a bead on where the Kara was in space, send the coordinates to Talok, and activate the wormhole. Sho, Shade and Zaleia emerged from the puddle, with Shade carrying his sister Anastasia in his arms. Siphon's eyes shot wide when he saw her, instantly knowing he had his work cut out for him. He indicated one of the tables even as he spoke. “Set her down there Shade. Daina, get the scanner ready to go as soon as she is on the table, I don't want to waste any time here.”

She nodded, setting what little was left to be done up in record time, then stepped back with the others, watching and waiting.

Siphon started up the device, watching intently, knowing they didn't have much time. After only a minute, the scan was finished, and he called it up on the screen for all of them to see. “Alright, it looks like some kind of viral isotope. I've never seen anything like it before though, this thing seems to be targeting her ability to take in water and cool off, causing her to overheat. That by itself is easy enough to fix, unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the only problem. Her internal organs are beginning to shut down, and before you ask me, I don't know why. Whatever this isotope is, my guess is it's designed to kill her.”

Sho shook her head in anger. “Siphon, you should know, other people are falling ill back on Earth. From what I heard, they all are exhibiting high fever as well as other symptoms. Could they be related in any way?”

He paused for a long moment before nodding. “Well you said this Mirvik fellow said that you were all getting what you deserved? I'd say the chances are that this thing is highly contagious, though I have no idea how it would be transmitted, most likely airborne though. Actually, I almost wonder if he got a hold of Ori technology, because this certainly looks familiar.”

Shade was barely controlling himself, and finally snapped out, “can you heal her or not Siphon?”

He took a deep breath before answering. “Sort of. I can prevent her from dying right now by healing her and taking some of her illness into my own body, but if this isotope does what I have a feeling it will do, she'll just get worse over and over until we figure out a way to completely eradicate the damn thing. I may end up having to put her in stasis if I can't at least slow it down some.”

Zaleia looked up at him sharply and said slowly, “Siphon, you said the Ancients suffered from a plague similar before millions of years ago. How did they get rid of it?”

He turned back to them, his face showing strain and worry. “They didn't. They were forced to reseed the galaxy and move on elsewhere, focusing on ascension. The Ancients never did cure that disease, but they did figure out a way to make their descendants immune to it.”

Shade gently pounded his fist on the wall, while Zaleia looked like she was going to do the same. Sho on the other hand looked straight at Siphon, asking the one question they were all likely thinking. “If that is the case Siphon, what makes you think you can find a cure yourself?”

He looked at her for a moment, then answered as truthfully as he could. “I don't know that for certain, but I have one thing on my side that they didn't have.”

Shade shot him a look before snapping, “and what is that?”

His eyes snapped fire red as he replied, “the help of the Ori, and the priors who created the first disease. I'm going to turn us around right now and take us back there.”

Zaleia just looked at him and said slowly, “what about Earth?”

Siphon just shook his head at this. “Right now, without help, I can't do anything for Earth. I'm afraid that right now, we have no way of helping them at all. Now if we can figure something out with the help of the Ori, we can do something, but right now, there is nothing we can do for them except admit we need help ourselves, and see to it we acquire it.”

Sho shook her head, a bit rattled at his words and admission. “What about contacting Talok and telling him to pass on the word and try to prevent the spread of this isotopic disease as you called it?”

“By now, all of us surely have been infected, which means anyone we came in contact with has as well, including Talok. If I have him beam down to Earth, anyone who hasn't already been infected would be. We would have to work a way out that wouldn't involve him beaming down. We'll also have to find a way of blocking the Stargate on our ships so no one else can gate in to them and contract this.”

Shade slammed a fist down onto the table. “Your saying we already could have passed this thing on to other people?”

“I'm afraid so Shade. This thing seems to spread before you show symptoms. Anastasia is the origin right now, and you said that the three of you felt fine, but others had already fallen ill? That means that it's affecting people before symptoms are shown from you three, though in her case I'm not sure why it was so fast. Oh crap, maybe I do.”

He stopped, taking out a small device. “Sho, do you mind if I take a quick sample? I'll need one from you too Zaleia.”

Zaleia looked at him a little funny and couldn't help but ask, “why, what's wrong?”

“Well, it is possible because she is half nymph that it would show much sooner in her because of where it's targeting inside of her. Unfortunately, that also means that this isotope has picked up DNA from her as well, and when that happens, sometimes mutations occur. If this thing has become fully airborne and can survive over great distances, then all of Earth might become infected in a short period of time.”

Shade hung his head and added, “and this damn thing may have picked up my demon DNA then too.”

“What kind of fall out are we looking at here?,” Daina asked.

“I have no idea, but I suspect a very large, bad one. Sho you were part right about warning people. We need to contact Talok, have him shut down his ship and seal off both Stargates, contact Coraxus and tell him and his people not to return to Earth yet and then have him gate here to help.”

Sho started to speak, then suddenly doubled over as her vision swam. Shade moved to catch her, and shot a worried look to Siphon. “It's starting to affect her too, isn't it?”

Wordless for the moment, he took both samples, handing them to Daina who started the scans. Finally he spoke. “I'd say so Shade. I'll do what I can for both of them, but I can't keep that up indefinitely.”

He only got a wordless growl as a reply, and then Shade sat down, obviously trying to calm himself down before he broke something or someone in half.

Siphon turned to Daina, hesitation in his voice for just a moment. “I need for you to get to the bridge and contact Talok. Tell him what has happened here and tell him to bury the gate. He'll know what that means. Then when he's done, he needs to find a way here that doesn't involve the Stargate.”

“Alright, I will. I will return as soon as I can.”

“Thank you love.” As she left, he turned back to face Anastasia and Sho, who were both on beds now. He took a deep breath, knowing he could only heal one at a time. He decided to go with Anastasia first, since she was already dying, and was in far worse condition than Sho was at this point. He only hoped he would be able to slow down the progress of the disease enough to give them a chance to cure it. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for what was to come, and then gently laid his hand over Anastasia's chest, closing his eyes and focusing. His breathing slowed considerably, and his facial features twisted in concentration as he began the tiring task of trying to heal what he could.

Shade looked up in time to see Siphon with his hand on Anastasia, and for just a moment was tempted to grab him and ask him what the hell he was doing to her. Even as his muscles tensed though, he could see the contortions of Siphon's face, as if he was trying very hard to focus on something. It took him a moment to realize, from the faint glow of light around both of them, that he was trying to heal her as best as he could. He made a mental note as to how it seemed to work, and decided it might be better if he left the room. It was bad enough seeing this happen to his sister, but with Sho next in line, he wasn't sure in his mood that he could contain himself to watch even Siphon touch her that way. He gently spoke to Zaleia, who for the moment seemed unaffected. “I need to step outside for a moment, call me in when he's done with both of them.”

Zaleia looked at him sharply and just spoke softly, but sternly. “Are you alright Shade?”

He nodded quickly, trying to smile but it didn't quite reach his eyes or face. “Yeah, it's just with everything going on and seeing how he has to heal them, just can't handle it right now is all.”

She nodded slowly, understanding that all too well. “I know what you mean. I know that it's for a good reason and he wouldn't do that unless he absolutely had to, but just the thought of if he had to do that to heal me is creepy enough now that I can see what goes on. Although, look at him Shade. He's obviously trying to concentrate harder than I have ever seen him do, and acts almost like he doesn't want to do it.”

Shade shook his head rapidly. “I don't think it's that he doesn't want to do it, more that he feels bad that he can only accomplish it by touching them like that. I think that's why he hesitated for a moment, he was trying to push everything about it out of his mind. Your right though, he acts almost as if he's having trouble with it.”

“I just hope that even if he's able to do something for them that this isotopic thing can't harm him too. We're really fucked if he comes down with it.”

“With any luck his symbiote will give him immunity to it. Wait a second, Talok has one too!”

“You think that Talok might be immune too then?”

“He ought to be, their symbiotes are of the same species. Assuming that he is, Siphon might be able to generate some kind of cure from the Wraith/Cralnek combination of genes. Call me when he's done with both of them and I'll talk to him about it, in the meantime I am going to go talk to Daina and see what she thinks.”

“Alright, I will.”

Shade quickly left, leaving Zaleia to watch what was going on. Soon enough, Siphon had finished whatever it was he was doing with Anastasia, and moved on to Sho. Zaleia noted that he seemed tired, and she hoped that it was just because the healing process took a lot out of him, and not a sign that he was infected.


Talok had just returned from visiting the Velokian home world, the planet that Vanessa lived on still. He had gone there to drop off a subspace transceiver for her at Narlina's request, and Narlina had gated there with him in order to use their gate to reach one of her hives in the galaxy. Even though the war with the Ori had ended a while back, she had kept her hives here in this galaxy to make it easier for everyone should they be needed for anything else. The gate had just shut down when he noticed an incoming transmission again from the Kara. Moving over to the panel, he activated it, and Daina's image came up.

“Talok, I am afraid we have some bad news here.”

He was instantly on guard, and spoke with a sharp tone to his voice. “What is it?”

Daina quickly filled him in on what had occurred since he had allowed Shade and his wife to go through the gate with their sisters, and when she told him that the disease likely was now fully airborne, he snarled. Daina looked at him worried, and asked, “Talok, what is it?”

“I just returned from the Velokian planet after dropping off their subspace transceiver. Narlina went through their gate to rejoin her hive as well. By now she has, and Vanessa said they were sending people to other planets to trade today,. By now those groups have already left.”

“So I take it then contacting them and telling them to fall back and stay put isn't an option?”

“I'm afraid not at this point. By now a good chunk of worlds in this galaxy will have been exposed to it. I can get in contact with Narlina and instruct her gives not to land anywhere, but I can't do anything at this point about the Stargates on other planets.”

Daina seemed about to say something else when Shade came onto the bridge behind her and spoke. “Excuse me, but I might have an idea on something. Oh good, you still have Talok on, even better. Talok, your symbiote is genetically identical to Siphon's yes?”

He blinked for a moment then spoke slowly. “Yes, it is, why? What does that have to do with this?” As soon as he said it, the answer occurred to him, but not before Shade had jumped in.

“Well I was thinking, unless this isotopic disease can pass through the immune systems of your symbiotes, then both of you should be immune to this. We already know that this disease supposedly is going to affect Wraith as well, so maybe we can use your immunity somehow.”

Talok nodded slowly. “Yes, that might just work. Your plan is to try and synthesize a cure from my own immunity, since the host species is one that normally would be affected, and then use that to synthesize a second cure for humans, after removing the Iratius bug DNA? In theory that should work.”

Daina nodded slowly herself, impressed. “Indeed it should. Then we will need for you to lock out incoming wormholes to your gate Talok, and then gate to us. Once your here, we'll head back into Ori space and get the priors to help us with that. You will also need to contact Coraxus and ask him to search for any indication of a Wraith vessel that isn't transmitting Alveran code.”

“I will do so and then gate to you. I estimate it will take less than an hour.”

“Very well, Daina out. Good Luck Talok.” Her image winked out, and he was left to handle things on his end as quickly as he could manage.

It took him fifty minutes to contact Coraxus, update him on what was going on, and then lock out the Daina Eil'Mori's Stargate from incoming wormholes. That done, he dialed the Kara's gate, and stepped through, hoping they could synthesize a cure fast enough to save lives.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Mirvik (Yet another Siphon story line)

Part 4: Shocking Revelations.


Coraxus had quickly passed on Talok's message to all of their allies, although he had been a bit curious after learning that despite having no contact with any worlds in common, the Vorian home world had already been affected with the same exact disease. With no way to contact Siphon or Talok now, he was forced to tell the Vorians they had departed to ask help from the Ori. Sivala hadn't been happy to hear that it was that dire of a situation, but had promised they would see to it they remained quarantined. He was in the middle of still sending messages to other ships when he was interrupted.

“Sir, sensors have detected another vessel exiting hyper-space thirty thousand kilometers away. Readings are consistent with a wraith hive, and it isn't broadcasting any frequencies we've been told to look for.”

Coraxus sat up straight at this. So it seemed this Mirvik fellow had come right to them, and they weren't very far from the Tollan home world at all. In fact, the planet was pretty well right in front of him. His thoughts were confirmed when the hive suddenly altered course, banking away from them and opening fire unprovoked.

The powerful shields of The Razors Edge flared up, absorbing the impact of the weapons fire, though Coraxus noted the blue globs of energy seemed deeper in color than they should have. Instantly the same officer spoke, “shields are holding, the hive is launching darts.”

“Prepare to return fire, let's see if we can take this guy out now while we have the chance.”

The Razors Edge returned fire, her main batteries opening up on the hive. When the damage report came back in, he was slightly amazed to discover they had done only moderate damage to the hive. Obviously this hive wasn't like the others then. Before he could tell his crew to keep firing, the hive jumped into hyper-space, leaving it's darts behind.

“Sir, the hive is gone, they just left. Left their darts behind too.”

“No matter, we can't track them anyway, but let's clear up these darts then.”

As his ship turned to fire on the darts, they suddenly burst forward in a single motion, all at once, heading straight for the planet. “What the hell do they think they are doing? If they intend to bomb run the Tollan capital they're going to get shot down pretty fast.”

His amusement was quickly replaced with an icy stare as the reply came back. “Sir, they aren't approaching on a bombing run. Their approaching at ramming speeds. Their approach speed is ballistic.”

“Are you saying their making a kamikaze run?”

“Yes sir, that is exactly what they are doing. Their impact velocities are going to be in excess of twenty thousand kilometers an hour. Nothing they hit down there can survive such an impact, and the ion cannons won't be able to track them fast enough.”

“How much time do they have?” Coraxus already was reaching over to warn the Tollan when the reply came back.

“Twenty seconds to impact sir.”

All Coraxus could do was watch in silence as the darts simply smashed into the gigantic cities below them, obliterating over half of it in a matter of seconds, likely killing countless Tollan before they could even register what had happened. “Gods, move us closer, let's see what we can do to help them.”

Even as his ship moved closer to render what aid they could, Coraxus already knew that for untold numbers, it was already too late. The destruction was widespread and immense. Half of the capital city had been utterly smashed to rubble, and if they were lucky, the Tollan council had spared losses. Coraxus suspected that given how widespread the devastation was, that the death toll would be in the thousands, if not the hundred thousand range.



Talok emerged from the gate aboard the Kara, and was greeted by Shade almost immediately. “Hey, glad to have ya here.”

Talok nodded to him and swiftly replied, “I'll be of as much assistance as I can. How long until we reach Celestis?”

Daina now entered the room, answering the question. “At least another day. Siphon has coaxed everything he dares to out of the drive, and we've already started broadcasting a frequency on Ori channels trying to get their attention faster. Still, it may not be enough.”

“Then we must begin work now, and what we do have at that point we don't have to try again.”

Shade nodded at Talok's words. “Agreed, let's get to this then shall we?”

Talok nodded once more, and they began working at one of the science stations, totally unaware of what else was going on in their own galaxy.


Kerry sat at her work table, going over several artifacts they had recovered from their expedition to M75-2R3. An attractive woman, she was always wearing some sort of body armor when at the SGC or off world, never one to be taken by surprise. She reflected briefly on how they had come across ruins of what seemed to have once been a highly advanced civilization, light years beyond what her own people currently had. Her fellow team members, those who were scientists anyway, believed that the same race those ruins belonged to were also the ones responsible for creating the Stargates, a fact supported by heavy mention of the exact method of building one found in the small database they had recovered. According to the database, those aliens had called themselves the Ancients, and were supposedly all gone, having apparently died out several thousand years ago. She marveled at how such a small device could send her from where they were near the innermost fringe of the galaxy to the outermost fringe of it within seconds. Of course, they had long since developed mediocre space flight capabilities, but they really didn't have that many ships. With only six currently functioning, they couldn't afford to send them on deep space missions for recon, they were only used in emergencies. In the event that a team found themselves stranded, a ship was sent to extract them, and with only six available to them, sometimes it took a while to get one out there. Currently five of their six were out of the solar system, shipping supplies to their few off world bases, designed to be the saviors of their species should anything bad happen to the home world. Kerry was broken out of her day dream by an alarmed voice from one of the space sensor technicians.

“Sensors are picking up a ship, just entered the system less than five hundred thousand kilometers away from the planet, and it isn't the Tina returning either.”

She snapped up, that getting her attention. “Visual?”

He nodded. “Coming in now.”

A moment later a very large ship appeared on the monitor, large enough to be triple the size of the mountain they were currently under. “Holy shit, is that thing as big as I think it is?”

“Eleven kilometers in length, five plus in width, at least two in depth, the thing is the size of a city!”

Well that blew her estimate out of the water, it was a hell of a lot bigger than the damn mountain. “Who's on staff right now here, any of the higher ups?”

He shook his head. “No, not for another hour. Right now your highest ranking officer here, so this is your call.”

She thought for a moment. She didn't think there would be time to get one of her superiors here to take charge, and they did have a ship. “Alright, is the Crimson fully staffed?”

He paused for only a moment then nodded. “Yes, she was getting ready to leave in ten hours to run a sensor sweep of that class six anomaly we found as soon as the Tina was back, why?”

“Tell them to be ready to launch in five, I'm taking her up there to initiate contact, and if need be, to protect our asses. I don't like the fact they haven't tried communicating yet and are just sitting there.”

“They aren't just sitting there, I think they are scanning us. Wait, are you crazy? That ship is almost twenty times larger than the Crimson!”

She shook her head. “Maybe so, but if they turn out to be hostile, I'd like to give ourselves some time to get the Tina here and even it up a little.”

She left before he could argue the point, knowing they didn't have much time, and not five minutes later she was nearing the larger vessel.

A quick nod from the tactical officer told her she had an open line, and she spoke to the other ship. “This is Colonel Kerry Haze of the Earth vessel Crimson hailing the unidentified super ship, please identify yourselves and your intentions in our space.”

She got an answer, just not the kind she was expecting or wanting. Seconds after her message, the Crimson shook under the force of the other ship's weapons fire.

“Shields down to thirty seven percent, enemy vessel is firing again and moving to face the planet, targeting military outposts!”

So that was what the scan had been for, and that ship had hit hers hard. She knew they couldn't take another salvo like that, and they only had limited amounts of energy weapons fire. “Evasive actions, return fire. Send a message to the SGC, we're under attack and we need any assistance from the surface we can get, and we need it now!”

The Crimson returned fire, her beams impacting against bare hull, hardly causing a dent in it with their first salvo. The second one struck harder, blasting off a chunk of the enemy hull, which began to seal itself to her amazement. “Gods, what the hell kind of ship is this?”

She didn't get an answer, though she wasn't really looking for one. The two ships had been fighting for nearly five minutes when she heard another voice, coming from the sensor station. “Colonel, there's two more ships that just arrived, unknown origin, their broadcasting on all frequencies.”

Kerry nodded. “Put it on!”

A moment later a small grey alien appeared on screen, and when he spoke it was with a commanding voice. “I am supreme commander Thor of the Asgard commanding the Beliskner, accompanying me is Kvasir. Stand down your attack Wraith Hive, or face us in direct battle.”

Before Kerry had a chance to let that sink in, the hive as he'd called it opened fire on the two Asgard vessels, scoring direct hits and seemingly causing minor damage. Both Asgard ships returned fire, moving between the hive and the Crimson. They began hammering the hive, chunks of hull battering off, and finally, the hive turned tail and ran. A hyper-space window flashed, and the hive vanished, but not before firing some kind of pod into the atmosphere of her planet, which exploded upon impact.

“Shit, what the hell was that thing?”

“I'm not sure, I'm not reading anything at all from that pod. Er, Colonel, we're being hailed by those Asgard ships again.”

She nodded again. “Put them on.”

A moment later, Thor appeared back on the screen. “Greetings, I am Thor of the Asgard. I regret we were unable to prevent the hive from firing on your planet. If we can be of any assistance, please let me know.”

She thought for a moment then replied. “Well, for now we could use a little bit of help if that hive decides to return, at least until we figure out what kind of damage they did to the surface.”

“Very well, we will maintain orbit for now.”

The screen shut down, and Kerry leaned back slightly in her chair. She had no idea just how big of a mess things were about to get, and no idea of the destruction that was now creping across her planet, slowly killing off her people.


Everything had gone to hell. First he hadn't been able to find any kind of magic reason for what was going on, then he'd found out his sister had contracted whatever the heck was making people sick here. He'd then suspected, rightly so, that the disease was something unnatural, and had sought out Siphon. The problem was, he was no where to be found, and those who knew him hadn't seen him in months. The major blow had been Elissia telling him just a few hours ago that three of the people he and Cat had helped two days ago, when this hell had started were now dead, likely because of the disease, was really making him angry.

Of course, he had asked Elissia to use the recall device Siphon had given her right after their victory over the Ori. They had both been stunned when the device had flatly told them that not only was the Kara not in the solar system, but that Talok's ship, the Daina Eil'Mori, was locked out with a class twelve bio-hazard lock down command. Barry didn't know what a class twelve was, but considering it was bad enough that the recall device was locked out, he knew the shit had hit the fan. Again.

He had started feeling ill earlier this morning, but was hiding it for now. For the first time since he'd known the alien, Barry was wishing he had taken Siphon's advice and learned how to operate the long range communication crystals himself. His thoughts regarding that were suddenly broken as Vulkoran entered the small area he was in, and called to him.

“Barry, good I needed to see you.”

Resisting then urge to tell him to shove off, he waved a hand slightly. “Yeah, what?”

If he picked up on Barry's mood, Vulkoran showed no sign of it, or simply didn't care. “Thought you might like to know that I finally got in touch with Coraxus, and he was able to shed a few answers on what's happening here.”

That got Barry's attention fast. “How does he know?”

“He said he spoke with Talok just before he left through the Stargate on his ship. Also had brief communication with Siphon before they were out of range.”

Barry nodded slightly. Finally, something! “Alright, and?”

“And it isn't good news.” He then told Barry everything he knew regarding Mirvik, what had happened to Anastasia, Siphon's quest to seek help from the Ori in curing the disease. “Oh, and he said Siphon thinks that the disease is a modification to one that existed millions of years ago, only he thinks it's more of a nanite released retro-virus. He thinks the priors may be able to help them cure it, since it bares similarities to the disease that wiped out the Ancients, or so he said. It also seems that we're not the only one's afflicted with this. Over half the galaxy is being affected by it, and all of the Pegasus Galaxy is too.”

Barry was silent for several moments after hearing that. If other worlds were being affected despite the lock downs, then that meant either this disease could transverse light years really fast, which was unlikely, or that this Mirvik fellow was out there infecting other planets himself. Barry figured the second was most likely he case. “So then there's nothing we can do for those already afflicted?”

Vulkoran shook his head. “No, other than pray. If the Ori can't help, then Siphon believes this disease will wipe out all life in the galaxy in a matter of a year at most, possibly less.”

Barry didn't have an answer for that one, and just stood there in silence, inwardly cursing. If by some miracle he survived this, he was going to find this Mirvik fellow and slowly kill him with the most painful dark magic he could summon.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Mirvik (Yet another Siphon story line)

Part 5: Unholy Alliance.



They had almost made it to Celestis when a single Ori ship had finally responded to their distress call. Siphon had spent most of the next day on call with them, not meditating at all in order to give them the best chance of success. Finally though an hour ago Talok had gone in to take over, after Siphon began to show signs of fatigue.

Finally, Talok emerged from the briefing room, causing Shade to jump to his feet.

“What's the situation?”

Talok paused a moment, knowing Shade wouldn't like part of the intel.

“Well, Zaleia is now down with this disease, we just had her beamed into stasis. The Ori believe they can synthesize a cure with what we've given them, but it's going to take time. Right now, it's just you, Siphon, Daina and myself who aren't ill. There's no telling if you'll come down with it or not, though I suspect not. We're looking at roughly three more days worth of wait minimal.”

Shade slammed his hand against the wall in frustration.

“Are you serious? Do they even have three days in stasis?”

Talok shrugged.

“They should, the chambers nearly stop all metabolic processes. The question really is, does Earth have three more days at least?”

Shade didn't have an answer to that one, and sat down, looking angry, but quiet.



Vanessa had responded with several ships to the Asgard's request for supplies to help another world. She had been able to give Thor some detailed information regarding the disease now ravaging Kerry Haze's world.

Now though, Kerry sat quietly on her ship, one of the few who thus far had not beamed back to the planet and was not infected. The Tina had returned, only to find out they couldn't land as there was a quarantine in place.

Now, she was being hailed by the SGC, and she answered.

“Colonel Haze here, go ahead SGC.”

“Colonel, this is General Brahms here. Things are getting much worse here, we've had over ten thousand deaths already. You and the crew of both of your ships are not infected, and should consider the possibility of locating a new planet in the event we can't cure this. We've also received word that the Beylon home world is dead. Their race is gone Kerry, all of them.”

Kerry choked back a stunned cry. The Beylon's had been one of their strongest allies over the last thirty years, the most technologically advanced of them. With them gone, not only was the entire alliance in danger of fading into nothing, but morale would plummet as the belief now was they had no hope. Composing herself, she finally answered back.

“With all due respect sir, I don't think we're there yet. I sure as hell would like to think we won't get there either. These Asgard are doing what they can, and I do believe they won't rest until they have some kind of answer for us. Interestingly enough, I trust them and the Velokian people they had deliver supplies to us. I think we'll be alright.”

The General nodded slowly before he replied.

“I wish we all could share that faith in a 'happy' ending Kerry. The truth is though, very soon my advice may end up becoming an order. The president is highly considering calling this a lost cause in private and sending both your ships away, forbidding them to return to this world until a cure or some form of immunization is developed. In public of course he'll press onward for us not to give up however, he is dying Kerry. We don't believe he has more than six days left.”

Again, Kerry was stunned. The youngest, most popular president in the history of their world was near death? If he died, the entire population surely would panic, and martial law would be enforced. Right now the only thing keeping people calm despite their neighbors dying was the strong presence of their president assuring them everything was going to be fine, that they would get through this. With him gone, it would all go down hill very fast. He knew it too, which is why he was considering taking the ships out of the picture. With them in orbit, the temptation would be too great for the population to try stealing them via the transport hubs. This also meant that the Stargate likely was going to be buried somewhere, it's power supply permanently removed so no one could use the gate in an attempt to leave, infecting other worlds.

“Understood sir. Currently, no official orders to move out or otherwise?”

Brahms shook his head.

“No, not yet Kerry. I just figured I would warn you it might be coming at any moment. If it does come to it, I wish you the best. You've always been like a daughter to me, and I expect you won't disappoint me.”

Kerry had to suppress the urge to either roll her eyes or laugh. Brahms was well up into his sixties, close to seventy. Kerry herself wasn't even thirty yet, though she was very highly ranked. Much of that had to do with her skill during the Voltari war her third year in the military. She had risen through the ranks at an alarmingly fast rate, promotions coming with more dangerous territory. A year ago, she'd been promoted to full Colonel, and Brahms had been the one to recommend her for it. Of course, he didn't know that she knew that, and he likely never would.

“No sir, I won't. I just really do hope it doesn't come down to a goodbye.”

“That makes two of us Kerry. I'm afraid I must go now, we're about to have a staff meeting to discuss our 'newest' options. Not that there are many though.”

“Understood sir. Good Luck to us all.”

With that, his image winked out, and Kerry was left back to her silent moping and worry.



The sun had come up over the Kih Andari home world, and had shone her rays on a total disaster zone. Thousands afflicted with some disease, slowly but surely killing them. They were a proud people, having broken off from their Vorian ancestors a thousand years ago. Now, the entire war with their ancestors could come to an abrupt end. Mirana Velna, leader of the Kih Andari had assumed at first the Vorians, or one of their allies had done this to them. However a day ago Mirana had gotten word that the Vorian home world, who she so strongly believed to be the source of this, was afflicted as well. In fact, according to her spy network, all but a handful of worlds within the galaxy weren't afflicted with it. All human life, and wraith life was afflicted, the disease slaughtering millions per day without prejudice. To make matters worse, several of her ships had encountered an upgraded hive ship near one planet, and when they had ordered the hive to surrender, assuming the intel on the weak points of a hive were still accurate, it had opened fire on them with weapons massively upgraded, obliterating two of the ships before making a hyper-space jump.

Now, Mirana stood amongst the wreckage of what had once been one of the capital buildings. Hours ago it had been looted and torn down by those afflicted with the disease, those who were fortunate enough to be able to move still anyway. She'd ordered her own troops to quiet the revolters by any means possible, but she now was beginning to realize that soon enough, the entire planet would be infected, and shortly after that, dead of all human-like life. Her thoughts were cut off by the sounds of revolters popping up.

She turned, hand on her weapon even as she realized there were a dozen of them, and only herself here. They had waited perfectly until her own troops were too far away to do anything, and now they probably were going to kill her. She snarled, refusing to go down without a fight, squeezing to pull the trigger. And that was when all hell literally broke loose.

A sudden flash of Draque transporter light swept over the area, and a hybrid looking wraith with several armed followers suddenly appeared, the group of them cutting down her opponents in just a few seconds. Mirana was startled. Wraith with Draque technology? What the hell was going on? Could this be the same wraith who had used a hive to cut through two of her ships? Her thoughts were cut off for the second time in less than three minutes when the leader spoke.

“I am Mirvik, commander of the Morvan Alliance. You are Mirana Velna, leader of these people. I offer you a proposal. Think wisely about what I am about to say, for your life, the very fate of your world hangs upon the answer you give me. Do you understand me?”

Mirana stared blankly at him for several moments, too stunned to reply at first. How the hell did he know who she was, and how the hell had he found her? His ship had to be in orbit, there was no other way he could have found her so precisely. Finally, she recovered enough to speak, knowing full well she wasn't out of danger yet.

“Alright, I'm listening. What do you want Mirvik of the Morvan Alliance?”

The hybrid seemed to smile, though it was hard to tell.

“Simple. In exchange for your cooperation, I am willing to allow your people to live under my guidance peacefully, and help you eradicate your enemy, the Vorians. What I need from you is relatively simple. First, I need your cooperation in the genetic construction of a new soldier, specifically designed to be unstoppable to our enemies. Secondly, I know you've recently come into possession of a Zero Point Module, yet despite your advancements, you haven't been able to make it work with your technology, and are preparing to authorize it's destruction. I will be glad to take it off your hands, as I have use for it, and several others that we can get our hands on. Finally, I need your silence on this matter, and not to share it with anyone else outside of your military circle. What do you have to say Mirana?”

At first she was tempted to laugh, but then she realized he was dead serious. That worried her some. Obviously the hybrid had something in mind, but she had no idea what it was. His little speech left her with several questions, which she wanted answers to. However, she wasn't stupid, and knew if she spoke the wrong way, she would likely be dead before she realized she'd made a mistake.

“You want my help in these matters? Very well, however I would like to ask a few questions first if I may? I'd like to understand what I'm signing on for if I'm to make any kind of commitment, so as to provide you with the best work I can.”

Again, the facial features of the hybrid moved, though it was hard to tell if it was a smirk or not.

“You may ask, I will answer them as best as I can.”

Inwardly she breathed a sigh of relief. At the worst, this turned ugly and she had stalled for some time for her people to arrive. At the best, well, having an outside source end this disease and speed up the destruction of the Vorians was definitely appealing to her.

“You made mention of genetic construction. What specifically do you need my help with? A genetic code that you need manipulated, or do you need some specific form of genetic code that you haven't acquired yet?”

This time there was no facial change upon the hybrid, he apparently had slipped into business mode.

“Both the Vorians and your people have great telepathic and telekinetic powers. They don't quite rival those of the Ori, but they are infinitely more useful because they can't be suppressed by any technology. I require a genetic sample of your genome, which will allow me to implant these abilities into a new soldier class created specifically to destroy the Vorians, and anyone else who stands in our way. You may volunteer yourself if you wish.”

Mirana had to suppress the urge to vomit. Such a creature would be capable of killing her own kind as well, and he knew that. Yet she had the impression that if she refused, he'd simply take what he wanted and slaughter her people, or just leave them to die of the disease. And for him to mention her directly, it made her wonder exactly how he intended to go about acquiring her genetic coding. Steeling herself, she pressed on.

“Alright, that makes sense. I'll have to consider if I want to be directly involved in it or have someone else take my spot, it isn't something I can decide upon this second. I'm sure you understand that the well being of my people comes before anything to do with my own personal decisions. Now, you made mention of helping us cure this disease. What makes you so certain that you can actually cure it? What do you have that no one else does?”

This time she was sure the hybrid smiled, only the smile was a chilling, purely evil one.

“I'm quite certain I can cure it because I already possess the cure for it. You see, I am the one who spread it to begin with. I was the one who infected Earth and this galaxy.”

Mirana inwardly shuddered. She'd been approached by the very bastard who had done this to her people, and here she was having a conversation with him like they were talking about the weather. This bastard was responsible for thousands of deaths across her world, and now she was left with two options. Help him do whatever the hell he was planning, and perhaps save her own life as well as her people. Or refuse him, and likely be killed for it, and never know what he'd done to her body or her world after she was gone. Neither option really appealed to her, but she saw little choice other than to help him. At the very least, she could always spend some of her time thinking of how to get out of it and kill the bastard. At best, well perhaps the disease hadn't been intended to reach here and this was an unforseen event, though she highly doubted it.

“That makes sense I suppose. Why create something that you can't control or fix should it have unforseen side effects? Alright, next question. Why the need for the Z.P.M? What use does it hold for you?”

For a moment, she thought she had angered him by his body language, but then he relaxed and replied.

“I intend to use it to power a cloning facility. Once our new super soldier breed is perfected and one has matured, we will need to mass produce them quickly. Once that is done, I assure you that the Vorian race will die quite quickly. Serve me well, and I may just grant you the privilege of being the one to commence the drop sequence and accompany them to the surface of the Vorian planet when the final battle begins. Think of it, a new race that you helped to create, one that will listen to your commands in battle, and help you to accomplish your life long goal of exterminating the Vorian race once and for all. Plus, you would have the chance to stand upon the shattered wills and broken bodies of your enemy, in their own cities, standing as the victor of a war that has taken far too long for you to win. The taste of victory would be quite sweet, don't you think?”

Mirana stood there for a long moment, unable to help but smirk just a little. The bastard might very well betray her later on when he got what he needed, but one thing she could count on was that he would help her destroy the Vorians. He'd be a fool not to, they posed as much a threat to him as her own people did in stopping the creation of this new race, and until the Vorians were gone, there was always the chance that they could wreck his plans. She held no illusions that he would in fact betray her at some point, likely killing her and her entire people if given the chance. So it was plainly obvious to her what needed to be done. She would help him, study the creatures she was helping to create and wipe out the Vorian people. Once they were gone and out of the way, she would utilize her knowledge and kill this Mirvik bastard. With him out of the way, she could use the super soldiers to take revenge on the rest of the galaxy, those who had harmed her people's chances of winning this war. Then she would attack the Ori themselves, destroying what remained of their civilization in revenge for the damage they had inflicted upon her world in their failed alliance attempt. Oh yes, the taste of victory over the Vorians would be very sweet, but no where near as sweet as the taste of victory when she ruled the entire galaxy, and the Ori were dead. Nothing would come close to beating that taste.

“It would be quite sweet I agree. Now, about my people, assuming I agree to this, which I have to admit I'm highly leaning towards, how long before I can expect for my people to be cured of this disease and be able to function at their jobs?”

Once more Mirvik regarded her with a calm look, before replying.

“If you agree, nearly that moment. We are prepared to disperse the cure directly into the atmosphere of your planet, ensuring it saturates the entire world, and takes effect within minutes of deployment. They may need to function without several people however, since I don't intend to conduct our experiments and such on your world. We'll be conducting them on my ship, and at several bases scattered throughout this galaxy and the Pegasus galaxy. Of course, this is assuming you do agree.”

A rush went through her body as she hid her grin. She could leave instructions with her people to set up the long range communications devices after they had left. This would allow her to contact her underlings no matter where she was, provided she could get some alone time. With her world safe, she could focus on what she needed to do in order to win, and survive. It seemed as if this was going to go much more smoothly than she could have hoped for. Perhaps it would even turn out to be the best move she had ever made as leader of her people. She saw no reason to stall any longer, she knew full well any further delay would cause him to become suspicious of her, and her intentions. For the moment, she had him fooled, and she had an opportunity to make a play for immense power. That was something she wasn't going to give up, and anyone who got in her way would be dealt with swiftly. Even though it meant working with a potential future enemy, the benefits outweighed the costs and the risks involved here. The only reservation she had about this was the nagging wonder of how he intended to collect genetic samples for these tests, and if that meant anything was going to be happening to her body. She wasn't above having sex with a future enemy if it presented her with an opportunity for power, but in this case she definitely wouldn't enjoy the experience. No matter though, she had faked pleasure before to get what she wanted, she could and would do it again if she had to. She would do what she needed to, even allow him to use her body if need be. She didn't have to like it, and she definitely wouldn't, but she would do it only for what she could gain from doing so. Slowly she nodded, a faked, but sincere looking nod of approval directed towards her new ally.

“I've not been outside of this galaxy before, it would certainly be a change for me. I'd like to see other worlds not within my own galaxy, if you'll let me. Very well, I agree to your terms Mirvik. May this be the beginning of a very long, fruitful partnership. I have but one final question, which is the most important of all of them. When do we begin?”

The hybrid definitely grinned this time, she was sure of it. She could come to accept that face given time, perhaps even not be repulsed by it as far as physical features went.

“We may begin as soon as you are ready and have the proper people brought with us. No doubt you will need to consult your people and arrange for your absences. I will disperse the cure now, and then we shall begin. Are you ready to proceed Mirana?”

She nodded once, hiding her emotions well.

“I am. I must return to the capital, perhaps you would like to escort me there?”

“As you wish, however I believe transporting there would be faster and more beneficial, yes?”

She grinned this time, playing her cards to her advantage.

“That it would. Take me away Mirvik, let's get this party started.”

A moment later, they all vanished in a flicker of green Draque beam, leaving behind the bodies of the people who only half an hour ago had tried to kill her, those events a distant memory in her mind as she forged ahead to the next agenda on her list.

 

[SiphonTalvesh]

Re: Mirvik (Yet another Siphon story line)

Part 6: All Hell Breaks Loose.



The Tollan planet was a total wreck. Against Coraxus's hopes, over a quarter of the council had been killed in the attack. Worse still, their people had begun to show signs of the same disease ravaging now nearly seventy five percent of the galaxy. So far no Tollan lives had been claimed by the disease, however it was only a matter of time. In a desperate attempt to save some lives, Coraxus had agreed to seek out a race known as the Nox. It had been proven that somehow, Coraxus and his people were immune to the disease. Why, he had no idea, but it was an advantage they could use.

That agreement had been a day ago. Now, the Razors Edge dropped out of FTL. Here before them was a planet that from orbit seemed to be similar to the depictions of what Siphon had once named Risa. Coraxus figured it was a place that had existed in his own dimension, or somewhere Siphon had been. Regardless, Coraxus took just a moment to marvel the lush paradise of a world beneath him, before ordering a small group, himself included, to fly down.

Their shuttle had been met by a dozen people, who didn't seem all that advanced to Coraxus. Then again, the Tollan had warned him the Nox hid their technology well, which was why they hadn't been attacked by the Ori. Simply put, the Ori hadn't even a clue that the Nox even existed, that's how mysterious their race was. He doubted even Siphon knew of them since he had of course been a prisoner of the Ori some time ago. Well, that story didn't matter much now, and so Coraxus had explained to the leaders of the Nox their request, and who had sent them, name included. In turn, they had allowed him to speak with a strikingly attractive woman with a native name that Coraxus couldn't even begin to pronounce. When he had told her as much, she had simply smiled and spoken in perfect English to him, telling him he could call her Samantha. It turned out that her name literally translated to that in an old earth language, which made him wonder if perhaps the Nox had once been part of earth's ancient cultures. Nevertheless, he began to tell her of the problems at hand.

“So, you were sent by Minister Valton of the Tollan Council to seek us out? I'm surprised that they would so easily divulge our location to any outsiders, no offense. It is just that we prefer to remain secluded, our days of aggression are next to being over. We will of course defend ourselves if need be, but we do not like to involve ourselves in other's problems or wars. It was part of the reason we allied with the Tollan to begin with. They must be in dire trouble to violate our agreement.”

Coraxus nodded slowly, understanding what she meant, even if he might not completely agree with the philosophy.

“They were attacked, unprovoked by a … well, I suppose he's a hybrid wraith of some kind. No one is really sure what he is. He goes by the name of Mirvik, and he's attacked at least twenty worlds. Earth, the Tollan planet, and several others that I can name right off my head, but I doubt I need to. The bottom line is, they suffered heavy losses in the ensuing kamikaze runs on their city, and to make matters worse there is a plague that is affecting the entire galaxy. Well most of it anyway, it clearly hasn't made it here yet. We've managed to prove we as a people aren't susceptible to it, nor does it appear we can carry it and pass it on to others. Why I can't say, but that is how things are. The Tollan are requesting any help that you may be able to provide to them medically speaking. I have to admit, I have seen the carnage left behind in person, and they aren't in a good situation. I believe they felt they had no choice but to communicate with you, and since we're not sure if your people would fall victim to this illness, they felt it best not to come to you directly. Unfortunately, the destruction also took out most if not all of their long range communications systems, hence why they didn't contact you via sub-space.”

Samantha seemed to pause for a moment, taking in the information without even blinking. It was then Coraxus realized she was focusing directly on him, and he got the distinct impression that she was reading his emotion, his intentions. How, he had no idea, but then again he had seen stranger things occur, so this wasn't exactly something new to him. Finally she nodded.

“I believe you speak the truth. Please understand something, my people generally do not help anyone outside our own, too many times we have been involved in wars that were not our own, but became ours due to our involving ourselves. We also have gained the ability over the centuries to utilize our minds much more effectively than even those you call the Kih Andari. We can use our minds to hide ourselves from even the most advanced sensors, even those of the Ancients. We were of course at one time in an alliance with them, but that was millions of years ago. We also can tell if someone speaks the truth, by a simple brush of minds. I apologize for the intrusion, however I'm sure you can at least understand our hesitation to take anything at face value anymore?”

Coraxus nodded.

“Yes, I can. I can't speak for anyone else other than myself, but I personally can understand it.”

She smiled again, this time more openly.

“Ours is an advanced race Coraxus. We will deliver supplies, but we will not expose our people to this disease first hand. We will allow your ship to escort ours to the Tollan planet, where we will transport the supplies you have requested to the surface. After that, I'm afraid you are on your own. The Tollan know how our technology, and our medicines work, they will be able to instruct you on how to appropriately use them should they find themselves too ill to do so alone. However, if this disease is as resistant to treatment as you say, I can not make any promise that our medicines will be of any more help than what you already have tried. However, as you say, the attempt must be made.”

Coraxus nodded slowly, then stood.

“Thank you, and thank your people as well. I am sure this will not be forgotten by the Tollan people, and I myself am grateful for whatever assistance your people are willing to provide. Is there anything I, or my people can do to help your preparations?”

This time she shook her head.

“I'm afraid not. This must be done by our own people. We will contact you when we are ready. Do not worry about trying to contact us, we will contact you via your ship.”

Coraxus had no idea how she planned to do that, but wasn't going to argue the point.

“Very well, again I thank you, and we shall await your call.”

Soon after, he was back on the bridge of his ship, sitting down. The long wait would begin, though he had no idea at the time the wait wouldn't be as long as he feared it might.



The time had gone by slowly it seemed, the anxiety almost unbearable. Finally though, a solution had been found. Less than an hour ago, Talok had woken Siphon up, telling him the Ori had something, and needed to speak with him directly. Shade had wanted to sit in, but knew he wouldn't be able to contain himself, and thus resigned himself to waiting. Talok had assured him that the pods would keep the girls alive, and would preserve them for at least another thousand years before the disease ravaging their bodies made any real progress. He was broken out of his memories as the door to Siphon's private communications center opened. He stood, but remained silent, his eyes watching as the Alveran regarded everyone in the room. When he spoke finally, it was with a measure of control that Shade hadn't seen him display since this whole thing started.

“The priors have found a way to cure the disease. Right now they are preparing to send a synthesized variant of the cure here. It will also act as an immunization to prevent future exposure to the disease, as well as cure carriers, or so it's believed. Shade, I know your itching to see your sister and wife cured, however I'm sure you can appreciate the need to test this first.”

Shade nodded, not happy with it, but understanding the merit of caution.

“Alright, how do we test it then without risking their lives?”

Siphon nodded slowly, before answering his question.

“If your willing, we'd like to test the first batch out on you, since we know you can carry the disease but aren't directly infected. If it works on you, the chances are very good it will do the rest of what it is supposed to do perfectly.”

Shade nodded this time. Normally he'd object to being experimented upon, but in this case he had no objection to it. If this was going to help save the ones he loved, then the sacrifice was well worth it.

“Agreed. How long before we start, and how long do we need to wait to be sure there aren't complications?”

“Less than ten minutes to get the materials sent here, and then twenty four hours to be certain that not only does it work as advertised, but that it isn't going to have some nasty side effect. If this works, the Ori have assured me they know of a way to spread the cure throughout the Milky Way and Pegasus Galaxies in short time, though it will require a simple rescue operation of someone with the pertinent details.”

Shade wasn't sure he liked the idea of having to track someone down before helping others, but if this person possessed the information they needed to do so, and no one else did, then what choice did they have?

“Alright, let's get started then, and hope good luck is with us this time instead of bad.”

Siphon nodded one final time.

“Talok will handle the arrangements for transport, I will prepare the medical bay to house a large store of our cure, and Daina, if you would be so kind as to administer the first dose to Shade so we may maximize our time?”

The Asari nodded once.

“Of course. Shade, if you'll follow me?”

With a nod, the half demon and the Asari left the bridge, followed after a moment by Siphon. That left Talok on board the bridge, as the channel pinged once to signal the Ori were once more hailing the Kara.



Time had gone by quickly, too quickly for Kerry Haze and her crew. Less than an hour ago, they had been forced to break orbit along with their sister ships, all of whom had been recalled. Those aboard the ships were fortunate to be the only ones of their species not infected with the disease ravaging their home world. Directly because of that, they had been ordered by the president of their world to break orbit, and fly as far as they could, out of the local galaxy cluster, and resettle elsewhere. There would be no long good byes, no drawn out ceremonies or tears shed. It had been obvious to Kerry the second the president had come on the viewer that he was a dying man. He could barely stand on his own, and his voice had been shaky as he had delivered what would be his final orders to the survivors of his people. She hated to see it end this way, but orders were orders, and they had departed.

They had only gone a few dozen light years before she had been told they were being followed by six Asgard ships. She had of course hailed them, wanting to know what they were doing, and had been pleasantly surprised when they had replied they would be her escort for as long as needed, and would help them settle on a new world. They would also relay any new information to them directly, as they could maintain contact with her world despite what would soon be a vast distance. They had also offered her the option of traveling to their own galaxy, which was so far away that the disease would never reach them. After consulting with the other ship commanders, they had agreed this seemed a good choice, and accepted.

She now stared at the charts of space the Asgard had given to her, plotting out their route, with stops along the way once they were outside of the local cluster to replenish supplies of food and water. They dared not acquire any from this region of space, for fear it would contain trace amounts of the disease and infect them all, making the purpose of this mission obsolete. The Ida Galaxy, their target destination, was extremely far away. Thankfully, there were a couple of small galaxies in between them and there, each of which at the present time were known to be safe harbor from the hell unleashed back home. It would take them nearly a dozen years with their hyper-drives at maximum to reach the Ida Galaxy, something Kerry wasn't really looking forward to. She still held out hope that they would be recalled, that something would happen and a cure would be found, but with each passing minute her faith grew weaker, her hopes dimmed and the chances became smaller and smaller. Nevertheless, there was nothing more she could do now but wait, and so it was with a heavy heart that she retired to her quarters, turning out the artificial lighting and tried to get some sleep.



Earth was a total mess. Thousands upon countless thousands were already dead. Earlier that morning, Barry had found out that a dozen more students at the school had died. What had surprised him the most, and maybe even rattled him was finding out from Ian, who was sick himself and barely able to stand, that their resident Wraith Queen, Narlina, was dying. As a Queen, supposedly she was supposed to be not only one of the strongest of her kind, but she was supposed to be immune to several different variants of diseases that would affect male's of her species. Nevertheless, Ian had told him Narlina was going downhill rapidly, and had finally entered a stasis unit hidden away somewhere.

His day had gotten even worse when he'd found out from Elissia, who still had yet to show any symptoms of the disease, that his sister Cat was also in very bad shape. He'd been informed that they were closing down visitation, not because of the risk of infection, no it was far too late to avoid that, but rather because most of those afflicted were so bad off it was taking everything they had to keep them alive, in the vain hopes someone would have a Eureka moment and find a cure. Barry himself had been feeling ill for some time now, but apparently his natural affinity for dark magic was giving him more of a fighting chance to last.

What struck him as odd was that not all of the school had become infected in a mad rush. It seemed as if the disease ran a pattern, infecting some here and there, then a few more later. He'd been hoping it was a magic reason, something that he could use to unravel the damn thing and stop any further infections, but his hopes had been crushed when a simple reveal spell had proven there was nothing magic about this. As much as he didn't want to admit it, magic seemed like it would be completely useless here.


Michael wandered about aimlessly, listening to the Dark Hunter ramble on in his head about the end of the world, and apocalypses. At first he'd been more than happy to tell it to shut up, but now he was beginning to wonder if it knew something that he didn't. He was yet to show any signs of the disease afflicting the rest of the school, though he held no illusions that eventually he too would fall victim to it.

Beyond the reaches of the school it seemed to be far worse. There were rumors that half of the United States, and a quarter of Russia had not only fallen victim to this, but a good number were dead, including members of the U.S congress. While he didn't know if these reports were true, he knew he could eventually find out, and so he set out to discover the truth, knowing it might be the last thing he ever did.



Julia had heard of many diseases in her lifetime, but had never seen one this bad, this all encompassing. The reports were that not only was the entire Pegasus Galaxy afflicted with this hell, but so was almost all the Milky Way too. It had taken some time for the to find the root cause of the problem, a nanite released retro-virus similar to what they had tried experimenting with to change Wraith into a more human form. Unfortunately, so far that knowledge had proven completely useless in actually finding a way to cure the damn thing, or even slowing it down. She'd confirmed it with several of her own medical technicians that some parts of this bore remarkable similarities to Ori technology, however there were enough differences to make her certain it hadn't been an attack by a hidden splinter cell out for revenge for the death of the ascended Ori.

Julia had gone out into the galaxy with six of her ships, surveying the damage herself, doing what she could to help ease the suffering of anyone she could, which unfortunately hadn't been much. Even the Wraith were being afflicted by this. The only good thing that had come out of this was that the rebel Wraith had gone completely silent, and it was believed they might even all be dead now considering the widespread destruction of the Wraith populations. However, she was broken out of her daze by a sudden alert.

“Julia, sensors are indicating a single Wraith hive ship, bearing three two zero. It's sitting still, but most definitely powered. It's currently in orbit around one of the afflicted planets.”

She stood, curiosity winning out over anything else.

“What's it doing there I wonder? Mr. Jameson, hail that hive.”

With a quick nod, he opened a channel, then added, “channel open.”

“This is Julia Alvran, commander of the Alveran vessel Luciara. Identify yourselves and your purpose here in this sector, we're not aware of any hives currently assigned to this sector of space.”

There was a long pause of silence before Jameson shouted out a warning.

“Ma'am, the hive is powering up weapons and maneuvering to face us. Check that, they're now opening fire on us.”

“Well shit. Shields up.”

A moment later, the shields were up, and a second after that she saw them flare up as the blasts from the hive impacted her shields. What startled her some was the reading that their shields had dropped seven percent with the first half dozen shots.

“What the hell? Scan that hive, why are their weapons more effective?”

A moment later, she got her reply.

“Sensors are indicating several different upgrades to their weapons systems, and their hyper-drive. Didn't notice this before, but that ship is a good three times larger than any hive I've ever seen, could be the same hive we were told attacked the Tollan.”

Julia nodded once before replying, “well then, let's give them a taste of Alveran weaponry shall we? Return fire, full power.”