Phoenix War III

[Ra]

The waitress hesitated for a bit, "I'm supposed to be working now, but... ah, why not? You're cute!"

As the waitress sat down and caressed him naughtily, Ra noticed a HUGEMOUNGOUS BULGE inside 'her' pants.

The waitress was a transvestite

Ra paused a moment, and then said, "I've seen stranger. Do have some champagne, it's quite the fine vintage."

[Dartzap]

'To be quite frank, sir, My lord was unable to find anything in that system. Lord Detritus went through various search patterns and different techniques and there was just nothing there, from what I understand he will be returning to the Astroid Belt within the next few hours, I'm sure if you wish to talk to him about it he will be more than pleased to transmat here when you have the time'

"Next few hours?" Darth Kreshna trying to hide the signs of weariness on his face. It is already dark out there, and I'm supposed to be hanging around in Kubika Lounge now. Sometimes I hate this job, he thought. "I would be happy to wait for his arrival, then."

'As far as Ba'al is concerned.. from what the intelligence community is saying, whilst he is a threat, he but a small fish in a rather large bowl of such things, we shall support you with the embargo, for all the good that it may do...'

'Would you like a jelly baby?'

"A pleasure," Darth Kreshna took one. "and allow me to express my gratitude that the Trollish Imperium would join us in this embargo."

"Oh, by the way, would you mind if I smoke?"

'I regret to inform you that Lord Detritus has been called away again, I'm sure you have many other people to see?'

Dright looks at a screen embedded into one of the chair arms and has a slight chuckle at what he see's.

'Well, it does seem that Ra is about to do something he'll regret later, perhaps you'd better see what he requires?'

[Ra]

Ra is half drunk when the hologram of Madar flickers into view. She waits a moment, and then shouts, "Ra!"

"WHAT?!" the Goa'uld yells, falling onto his new "mistress'" lap.

"I have important news," the Dark Jedi answered.

Ra got up, and waved the Twi'lek away, snarling, "Got business. Shoo."

"Have it your way," the waitress glared. She - or he? - strutted out of the room.

Madar rolled her eyes, and stated, "There's been an emergency meeting of the Senate Armed Forces Committee. For what, I have no idea, but it obviously is something to keep an eye on."

"Very well," Ra said, trying to shake off his drunken state. "Keep me... *hic* informed."

"You're drunk," Madar sneered. "You have a meeting of the utmost importance ahead of you, and you're drunk."

"Whatever," Ra snapped. "I'll take something for it."

The shadowy woman nodded skeptically, and stated, "I'd better go, before someone notices me sneaking around in the Senate building. I'll report anything else of importance. Madar out."

Ra snorted, and then got out some drugs he'd picked up on Correllia. That'd take care of his buzz in short order.

[Narsil]

The android decided that he was better off leaving the battlestation, before the imperial soldier managed to find time to cross-reference his visa between his other duties. Boarding his (stolen) ship and taking off as quickly as possible, he made a series of hyperspace jumps, a shortcut through a wormhole and a final jump using Commonwealth Jump Engines to throw any persuers off balance, and then returned to his own outpost on the very edge of one small satellite galaxy, right off of the edge of Andromeda.

"You're back early," the Constructor Ship's AI greeted him.

"There was nothing going on anyway, and one of the soldiers was starting to get suspicious, I didn't want to cause an incident," he replied. "We should be focusing more on a way to get back than on intergalactic affairs anyway."

[Destructionator XV]

picking up where I left off...

"First off, allow me to list some characteristics common is all three major species in the genus that I feel are contrary to normal evolutionary patterns. One: extraordinarily low reproductive rates, caused both by behavioural patterns and chemical barriers. Second, concious neural control over various biological functions. Third, their long lifespans, which would lead to increased competition. Fourth, missing links in the A'millian fossil record, and lastly, the lack of related lesser organisms. Let us detail them one by one.

"Starting off with the extraordinarily low reproductive rates. In order for evolution to occur, and for a species to be successful, they must have overpopulation. With an overpopulation, there is more diversity and more competition: the driving force for evolution. Evidence points to A'millians, even at the height of their reproductive era, not to be confused with the height of their civilization where the numbers were amazingly even more dismal, had an average of but three children per person, over their, on average, twelve hundred yahren life spans at the time! When it is taken into account that it takes two to tango, this led to a crawling slow population growth."

"It is not possible," the Lady interjects, "that the ancestor had better reproductive rates, and the low one was simply adequately fit? After all, biologically, aside from the species forks, we haven't changed that much in the last fifteen thousand yahren."

"It is possible, but seems unlikely to me, and here is why. Relating to my final points, we have no evidence that such a creature existed, and consider if it did, that with such a significantly higher reproductive rate that it would likely be able to outcompete the new species."

"If higher reproductive rates were the only factor, ants and other insects would be the only animals around!"

"However, with insects, the competition were not mostly equal. With this hypothetical organism, most other things would indeed be equal. But the real problem is there is no evidence such an organism ever existed!"

"Go on."

"Now, to the fact that all species in the A'millian genus have a high amount of concious control over various biological functions, to such an extent one could kill himself with a thought! They also have control over other little functions, such as stopping hair growth by thinking about it. What advantage could this offer?"

"It could simply be vestigal or extraneous," the Lady retorts, "after all, we have seen various concious control evolve in other species before."

"True, but none ever so precise and potentially deadly. When combined with the other minor physical oddities, such as the lack of male nipples and belly buttons on all, it just looks more and more unlikely. There is too much that does not offer an advantage and doesn't follow normal patterns."

"Continue, please."

"The very long lifespans are unlike any other biological organism we have ever seen. Even trees do not often live older than five hundred yahren, and A'millians, even without good medical technology, live between one and two millenia! Looking on A'millian Prime, the next animal species with a long life only lives about three hundred fifty yahren. Where is the rest of the long lived family? With evolution, there would be cousin species sharing many of the same traits."

"Three hundred fifty yahren is still very long lived for an organism, and it happens to occur on A'millian Prime. I think that may be the cousin species you want."

"But there are no more, and they share very little, still. Did the others all die off? If so, where are the fossil records of these species?

"For cousin species, many might point to the forked two from the A'millains, but they are very similar, and their development period is a little better known: a population of A'millians became isolated at some point about ten thousand yahren ago, and changed. This is not what we normally mean by cousins, and in fact, raises more questions than it answers.

"How did they chance so significantly in just ten thousand yahren, especially given the long life spans and low reproductive rates of the three species? This is barely enough generations for such changes to occur. We know the J'killian species emerged once they were teleported to an ancient artificial city on the A'millian moon by an ancient artificial teleporter. The importance of that fact cannot be overstated - it proves a technologically advanced ancient civilization was present on A'millian prime in the past, and shows that their technology may cause species to mutate."

"Perhaps the mutation was the cause of radiation or other such side effects of living on the moon?"

"Plausible, but also consider that this ancient technology is remarkably similar to ancient technology found on at least four other systems, and on these other systems, they had bio labs where they experimented with genetic engineering."

"None of which, however, were found on A'millian Prime."

"Correct, but still known to the ancient civilization. Which leads me into my alternate theory."

"You know, that almost makes sense," Adam says telepathically.

"Indeed, I think it warrants further investigation," she answers back.

"It is my belief that the A'millian species did not evolve biologically, but were instead pushed along by this ancient civilization. This explanation asks not for stretches of improbable events, it brings in no unknown magical hand, and explains away the inconsistancies."

"It does ask for one stretch however," the Lady once again counters, "it asks us to believe the ancients were here before the A'millians, and there is no evidence for that. Their facilities here aren't that old."

"Or is it that the A'millian species isn't that old? We have no evidence they were there first. No old fossils, no ancient artifacts. The simple fact is we don't know, and given the age of these facilities doesn't vive with the known facts about the ancient civilization as it is."

"True."

"I'll take questions now from the public."

"And we'll bail out."

"Good plan."

"Doctor," Adam begins, "thank you for your interesting presentation, but I'm afraid we are busy people, and must be going."

"Thank you for attending."

"Good day."



The Lord and Lady exit the room and beam back aboard their ship.

"I think it is about time we took a more detailed look at these ancients. We've all we can learn from what they left on our planet, so who says we find there planet?"

"A splended idea," she agreed, "I'll inform the castle of our absence."

"And since Starfleet is relativly unoccupied at the time, go ahead and request some science vessels to assist us. I think we should get started at Algo. If we can find their ship, we might be in business."

"Agreed, transmitting message now."

"And setting a course for the Algo system. We should arrive in two days."

In a blink of light, the starship leaves the Koreallia system.

[Destructionator XV]

"So, what if we are intelligently designed?" she asks.

"I'd say the designers could have done a much better job!" Adam responds.

"Nevertheless, I do find it rather fascinating. At the very least, we might be able to find more about the origin of my species."

"Aye, we are all rather bizarre. It seems more likely to me that you all came about simply due to radiation causing mutations or something though."

"Oh probably. Sadly, we will probably never know for sure, but every little clue still gives interesting insight into our past."

"Yeah. What will be really cool though is putting the ancient story all together. We might be able to figure all that out, and just think of all they've done."

"Yup. Besides, it isn't like any of this is going to change who we are now."

"Nope. All it will do there is add some irony as we lambaste the fundies on earth!"

"Heh."

"Something I can't help but question is if you are going to intelligently design a life form, why make it biological? Artificial life is superior in nearly every way, and easier to engineer to boot."

"Food and research purposes are all I can think of, both of which we know the ancients have done in the past."

"Point, but still, research on intelligent biological organisms seems like a bad idea."

"Perhaps it wasn't what they intended?"

"Maybe. Or maybe they were a little nuts."

"Could be. ....I wanna watch Airwolf."

"Ohh, been a long time since I've seen that show!"

"On the main viewer..." she says while getting up to get it set up.

"Sweet."

[Destructionator XV]

Nearly two days later

"Now entering the Algo system, slowing to impulse power." the Lady announces from the helm.

"And received transmission from Wren, we are cleared to dock at Zelan's lower port."

"Setting a course."

Seven minutes later

"Docking clamps secure, airlock seal established."

"Wren is waiting in the control centre, he said to simply meet him there."

"Never ceases to amaze me. This station isn't that much bigger than one of our battlecruisers, and has so much responsibility."

"Aye, it is truly a spectacular system."

"Well, let's get going."

They leave the bridge and work their way down to the airlock. Once the room has pressurized, the light goes green and they step inside. Then, since the station and the ship had incompatible gravity systems, the artificial gravity field in the room is gradually shut down, and the outer door opens.

They push off from the floor, and travel in a parabola through the passage as the artificial satellite's gravity field intensifies, finally pulling them down to the floor. They take a moment for their hearts to readjust to the sudden change in gravity, then walk inside, and the airlock closes behind them.

They take the lift up to the control room, and stand back for a moment just looking at it. At the end of this room is a gigantic monitor system, over five metres tall and ten metres wide. On this giant wall there are dozens of monitors, scores of control panels, and hundreds more blinking lights. From this room, the entire status of the artificial satellites Zelan and Kuran can be seen, and the entire system's artificial environment maintenance systems can be monitored and controlled in addition to controlling the satellite itself.

Standing in front of it all was an over two meter tall, bulky android, Wren, the artificial intelligence in charge of the system for over two thousand years now. As the Lord and Lady enter the room, he turns around and approaches them.

"Welcome back to Algo," he addresses them "I started to pull some of the data regarding Noah's last known location, and we have started calculating possible current locations."

"Even efficient as always, I see." Adam responds.

"I have to be," Wren says, nodding his head towards the situation wall.

"Indeed. Have you learned anything from your records that might help?"

"No. All the relevant data that you don't all ready know would have been stored with Mother Brain itself on Noah."

"And she could be almost anywhere."

"Correct. Lifeless and adrift for this long, and her engines must have fired, meaning she could be in the system, outside the system, or even crashed into a planet or star. The only thing we do know is she is not where we would expect given her last known orbit."

"Two thousand years is a long time to drift. Well, if we can assist in your calculations."

"I shall upload the variables to your ship's computer immediately."

"Within the next day, we have six other science vessels arriving loaded with probes. If the Noah is still out there, we'll find her."

"With your computer helping, we should have narrowed down the possible locations by then enough so the search may be possible."

"Very good, well, let's get crunching those numbers."

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

'I regret to inform you that Lord Detritus has been called away again, I'm sure you have many other people to see?'

Dright looks at a screen embedded into one of the chair arms and has a slight chuckle at what he see's.

'Well, it does seem that Ra is about to do something he'll regret later, perhaps you'd better see what he requires?'

Darth Kreshna frowned, almost blurted out the question 'how do you know', but kept silent. Trollish hackers were well-known throughout the two galaxies (Milky Way and Imperial Galaxy), and he knew that the Trolls were constantly hacking into Death Star's nightclubs security cam network.

"Well, if that's the case, I would like to excuse myself then."

"Oh, by the way," the Sith paused for a moment before heading to the door, "I'm going to Kubika Lounge for refreshment; would you be interested to join?"

[Destructionator XV]

A week later
ooc: remember, my timeline is separate from yours until our characters need to interact, at which point they will resync

"I think it is time for a Captain's Log," Adam says.

"For what? The convinenice of the viewers?" The Lady asks.

"Why, yes. We should be keeping a record of this, for posterity."

"I guess so."

"Good. Now, let's see, ah yes. Captain's Log, stardate... er... stardate.. blast, what the hell is the current date?

"What are you asking me for? Ask the computer."

"Computer, be a dear and fill in the date."

The computer beeps in acknowlegement.

"Ok, let's go again," he continues, "Captain's Log, stardate computer-you-take-care-of-this. After days of grueling sensor sweeps, dangeresque number crunching, and dozens of false alarms, we have finally located the spaceship Noah, the last known existing ship of the ancients, adrift for millenia and now dead in deep space, her hull battered from centuries of micrometeor impacts; her interior as lonely as deep space itself. We are preparing a boarding party to investigate."

"Dangeresque number crunching? You tried to hard in composing that."

"The CPU could have overheated working so hard!"

"Umm, no, not really."

"You probably got that 'fact' from a book didn't you? Well, I-"

"You aren't Stephen Colbert," she cuts him off.

"No, I'm Rick James, bitch."

"Oh Christ, let's just beam over all ready."

They head down to the transporter room, suit up in full pressure suits and place some carryable scanning and analysis equipment on the pad. The computer energizes and two pillars of light materialize in the dead ship.

Inside the ship was all vacuum; her atmosphere escaped through hull breeches many many years ago. The complete darkness is broken when the boarders turn on their lights, illuminating a long, empty hallway.

Adam opens a tricorder, its normal beeping inaudible with the lack of atmosphere.

"I am picking up some organic material, but no substantial energy readings whatsoever," he tells the Lady over their radio, "this placer is deader than my last birthday party."

"The computer core is this way," she points down a short hall.

"How- ahh, good call," he says while she shines her light on a directory map on the wall.

They take a hold of their heavier equipment, turn off their magnetic boots and just kick off the floor, serenely travelling in a perfectly straight line in complete silence.

Near a turn in the corridor, they encounter what appeared to be a treasure chest with some organic residue around it.

"Heh, that noob got pwned." Adam remarks as they pass by.

Soon, they come to a closed door that appeared to have been damaged by energy weapon fire. They force it open, and are greeted by a dead humanoid body, apparently killed by a sword cut.

"Wow," Adam says, "must have been preserved by the vacuum over all this time."

"I think we should take it back to one of the science ships. Who knows what could be learned from this ancient cadaver."

"Agreed," Adam says while tagging it with a transport beacon.

They move in further into the room, and see wrecked equipment.

"This looks like hologram projectors, forcefield emitters, and various user interface equipment, all destroyed," the Lady observes, "this must be where the battle took place."

"Yeah, but where is the data core? Behind that door?"

"One way to find out," she says while forcing it open.

Inside, they find even more preserved bodies, and instead of tagging each one, they simply leave a beacon in this room, so they can come back to it later, and move on, to a ladder leading downward.

They go down, and find themselves surrounded by a computer core.

"Finally... so this is Mother Brain." Adam says looking around.

"What an impressive machine. Most appears intact." she adds.

"Aye.. this looks like a destroyed processor cluster, and these active memory circuits look fried, but lookie here, persistant storage units. Intact. ...You know, if we restore power, this system might still be functional as a data retrieval unit. And with a little work, I think we can bring the AI back up too..."

"You can't be serious," she objects, "this is the Mother Brain that was intending to enslave and exterminate the people of Algo."

"Machines aren't truly evil... just people make them that way."

"Nice Chrono Trigger reference, but still, I think bringing the AI back online is a bad idea. We should take these persistant units back to the ship and attempt data extraction and retrieval."

"You have to admit, it would be most fascinating to talk to it, understand it. Under controlled conditions, it can be perfectly safe."

"It is all ready dead. We shouldn't be bringing figures from the past back to life just to interregate it, and then probably just execute it when we are finished, AI or not."

"No, I guess not. Well, let's just get this back to the ship for analysis." he says, tagging the drives with transporter beacons.

"I do think we should tow the Noah to a starbase for further examination."

"Agreed, and we'll tell Wren what we've found. He will surely be interested in it."

"Aye, well, we're ready here. Computer, energize."

The Lord and Lady beam back to their ships, and the dead body and computer parts are beamed aboard a science ships.

The spaceship Noah is taken in by a tractor beam, and they set a course for the nearest A'millian starbase.

[Destructionator XV]

A'millian Starbase 197, three days later

Adam's fleet of science ships and Noah have gone to starbase 197 and used the bases facilities to aid in their research. Armed with knowledge Wren transferred to them about their older data formats under Mother Brain, it did not take long at all to extract the wanted data from the recovered data units.

"Sir," a technition called, "we have it!"

"Awesome," Adam says moving over to him.

"Using their flight logs and our stellar cartography data, we believe we have found the ancient homeworld," the technition explains, "now, the data had some degradation, so we could not be precise, but have narrowed down their homeworld to be in one of these seven systems in the Milky Way galaxy."

"Oh dear," Adam says, "four of those are in Goa'uld space."

"And the other three are in unexplored space," the technition adds.

"Excellent work, everyone. Have these coordinates transferred to my ship."

"Yes, sir."

The Lord and Lady walk out and return to his ship.

"I really don't want to deal with the snakeheads," Adam says to her.

"You know, having borders like that in space is pretty absurd anyway. Do they have a base on any of these planets?"

"No, not that we know."

"Then do they really have claim to it? They just drew an arbitrary line and said anything inside it is there's. They might have never even been to these planets before."

"That is a good point, and hell, they'd probably never even notice us."

"And the mission is purely scientific, with no military resources. I don't see how they will complain."

"We should ask them anyway, when we get to the Milky Way, just to be nice."

"And if they say no?"

"Fuck em, we have cloaking devices."

"Works for me."

"Well, tell the other ships we are setting course for starbase 186."


Shortly after, their ship and two other science ships go to warp speed.

[Ra]

Meanwhile

Ra was been successful in shaking off his buzz, and decided to bide his time by watching televison. It was something he rarely did.

"Samantha Carter, COME ON DOWN!!! You're the next contestant on THE PRICE IS RIGHT!"

"Oh, this is so exciting," the Air Force colonel grinned.

Bob Barker then announced, "Now for our next item up for bid!"

"It's a brand new TOASTER OVEN! This new Kane Corporation toaster comes with seventeen settings, and can cook the most mouthwatering bagels in under a second! It comes equipped with special cooking coils made to the most exacting standards, and is guaranteed for life! Kane Corporation, producing the Technology of Peace!"

"Erika, what do you bid?"

"A hundred dollars, Bob!" the woman answered.

"Fool!" Ra interjected. "The price is clearly $235.03! I checked one out at GalactaMart in Correllia City just yesterday!"

Bob then pointed to the next contestant, and said, "And what do you bid, Edwina?"

"One hundred fifty, now stop bugging me!" the robed woman sneered.

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. What do you bid, Samantha!" Bob inquired.

Carter thought for a moment, and then stated triumphantly, "Two thirty five oh three."

"Nerd," Ra muttered.

[Destructionator XV]

The intergalactic transwarp hub at Starbase 242 comes to life, and three starships emerge, having entered the other side of the hub at starbase 186 less than two days ago.

Starbase 242, the main A'millian base in the Milky Way, saw its share of action in the Phoenix War, but since then, has been a rather quiet place, mostly just home to the hub that speeds travel to and from their home galaxy, and the Starfleet section responsible for defending it, seeing not much more than the occasional ship pass through carring staff for the embassy on the Death Star III.

The commander of the base is now Rear Admiral Denise Wise; Grand Admiral Reilly was recalled to the home galaxy once the Phoenix War came to an end.

Lord Adam wastes no time after arriving in opening a channel toward Goa'uld space, wishing to contact Supreme System Lord Ra to secure permission to send out scientific serveys to the possible planets he had listed.


He sends out the transmission, and waits for a response.

[Ra]

Ra's Palace, the planet Heliopolis

A female Jaffa noticed an incoming transmission, and pushed a large, glowing button on the console, barking, "Imperial palace. How can I help you today?"

[Destructionator XV]

"Greetings, I'd like to speak to whomever has the authority to grant passage to the A'millian Star Empire to worlds within your borders for scientific purposes."

[Ra]

"Scientific purposes... uh... Sarge?"

"What, sister Jaffa?" the sergeant asked.

"Like, this dude wants permission to go to worlds within our borders for scientific... purposes, or some shit, sarge," she said, scratching her head.

"PERMISSION?! HAHAHA! We will grant no permission! To arms, my brothers, and show them the might of our god! JAFFA KRE!"

"Uh... whatever. Like, I'll get back to you on that one, sir," the Jaffa woman answered, hoping the A'millians didn't hear her senile superior. "Where's our god dude, anyway?"

"HE IS ON CORRELLIA, BATTLE-SISTER!" the sarge cried.

She then rolled her eyes, and said, "Computer, where is Ra?"

"On the third Death Star," came the droned answer.

"Oh, cool. Like, how do I patch a transmission through?"

"TAKE YOUR STAFF WEAPONS UP AND FORCE IT INTO SUBMISS-"

"Oh, shut up already!" the Jaffa woman screamed. "Jesus. Like, which button do I push? Maybe this one?"

Ride of the Valkyries started blasting over the speakers.

"ASGARD!" cried the sergeant. "SOUND THE ALARM!"

The Jaffa then proceeded to Zat the sergeant. It was the only thing she could do. She then stopped the music, and pushed another button.

"That should work, huh?" she asked.

Over the speakers, she heard someone screaming about prices.

"NO, YOU DUMB TAURI, IT IS $501.32! HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET ON THE DAMNED STARGATE PROGRAM?!" Ra raged, his veins showing.

"Upon further calculations, perhaps I'll change the seven to a one," Carter said calmly.

"THREE! THREE! THREE!" the crowd shouted.

"OH, SHUT UP! It's not a damned three! IT'S A FUCKING ONE!!!" Ra bellowed.

[Destructionator XV]

Adam looks at the Lady, and says "And we are the weird ones? Woooow."

She just shakes her head, as the transmission is patched through.

"Lord Ra, I would like to ask your permission to send some of my science vessels through to these systems," he presses a button which transmits their coordinates, "for an archaeological survey."

[Ra]

"WHA-uh, sure thing, just don't mess up anything while you're over there or incite any rebellions, and you're straight," Ra answered. "Though I would like to take a look at what you're over there doing, if you don't mind."

[Destructionator XV]

"What did you have in mind? An observer on one of our ships, or one of your own ships tagging along?"

[Ra]

"An observer will suffice, I expect," said Ra. "I'll have my chief scientific advisor, Meryetre, come over and assist you. You don't have any problems with this arrangement, do you?"

[Destructionator XV]

"No, not at all, though be aware we have three ships, that will be checking out different planets at once, however all three ships will always stay together in the same system. And shall your observer take a ship to our base, or will we have to pick him up?"

ooc: notice that I edited this post slightly

[Ra]

"She can be joined by two others, I suppose," Ra sighed. "Meryetre's team will arrive at your Starbase in sort order."

[Destructionator XV]

"Very good. Thank you, and out."

He closes the channel.

"Well, that's annoying. There's bound to be questions, complaints, ugh."

"Oh well, it isn't that bad."

"I guess not."

[Destructionator XV]

In the meeting room of Starbase 242, Lord Adam has the captains of five science ships gathered.

"Gentlebeings," he addresses them, "what we are looking for is the homeworld of an ancient civilization, a civilization known to be technologically very advanced. According to the data we have, their own home was rendered uninhabitable due to some problem with their global environmental control system at least two thousand five hundred yahren ago, and it may have been even longer. Since it has been so long, the planet may be nothing like we expect. It most likely does not have any advanced life on it, but we cannot be sure. What we should be looking for is evidence of the global artificial climate control systems, which will require subsurface scans of any planets or moons that may have been habitable thousands of yahren ago.

"We have narrowed down the list to seven systems, four of which are inside Goa'uld space. The three in unclaimed space will be searched by three ships and at the same time, the four in their space will be searched by my ship and two of yours. The ships checking the systems in Goa'uld space will be carring a Goa'uld observer; more on this in a moment.

"ASV Discovery, ASV Endeavor and ASV Pathfinder will conduce the searches on the three unclaimed systems, all three going to one at a time to speed searches of the planets, starting at system P-8765, then system P-7991, and finally, system S-8472.

"ASV Challenger and ASV Columbia will accompany me into Goa'uld space. We will determine the order in which we shall search the systems once the Goa'uld advisors arrive and we can discuss each system's potential with them. On these advisors, there will be one on each of our ships. I want all three of them under constant watch, and not permitted into any sensitive areas of the ships, nor allowed access to any sensitive information. If they want access to the public library computers, fine, but everything else is need-to-know only. Additionally, if they are Goa'ulds themselves, I want them under double watch and internal scan of the symbiote, to make sure they don't try anything like jumping hosts."

"Sir," one of the captains questioned, "are the Goa'uld a friendly nation? Do you really think they will try espionage on this mission? Restricting access is of course standard procedure, but keeping them under constant watch?"

"Captain, while the Goa'uld are friendly, at the moment, remember they were not always, and shall not always be, and while it is true that not all of them are backstabbing liars, most of them are, and given in their society you don't make it very high in the ranks if you aren't ruthless, you can be sure these ones are. Never trust a Goa'uld."

"I see, sir."

"This briefing is adjourned."

[Dark Silver]

Imperial Galaxy
Maw Cluster
MAW Installation Lab Cluster Thirty-six

------ ------- ------

Doctor Emilio Levantin studied the display slowly, gazing at the intricacies of the biological sample. It was amazing, so simple, yet so complex at the same time.

"Where didyou say these samples were located?"

"Cluster Sigma Ragnor-388- near quadrant Zappa Epsilon, in the Milkway Galaxy. We're still attempting to cross reference it's DNA strands to get a idea of overall body structure."

"I can tell you from just a glance, these samples show highly mutagenic properties...have you tried exposing it to Beta and Gamma Radiation?"

"Yes, exposure to Beta radiation induced cellular reproduction on a phenominal scale, while Gamma exposure promoted mutation of the exposed genetic stock."

"Any clue then to what we're looking at"

"Negative, the DNA is just to complex at this point...."

"Let's see if we can grow one...I'll put a request into the Imperial Ministry of Science for a set of cloning tanks outfitted with Beta and Gamma Radiation generators. Also, have them contact the Death Star III, we need a ship to scour that area, see if there's anymore biological samples, preferably alive that we can...procure for study."

-------

Imperial Ministry of Science, Coruscant
Imperial Galaxy

"We were already aware of your findings Professor. Rest assured we are abreast of the situation. Grand Moff Hebzola is already sending a courier to your location with the requested clone tanks, he wants a viable full biologic sample as soon as possible. Science ministry out."

Another channel opened, and a message sent to the Death Star III, undr Priority Omega-Omega clearence, for Darth Kreshna only.

The contained orders, send his fastest science vessal - secretly- to the SR-388 system, and scour it for biologics, contain and transport them back to Imperial space shortly there after. If the prospects were fruitful, he was to claim that area of the Galaxy for the Empire....

[DesertFly]

With a flicker of folding space, the hyperspace ring reappeared, dragging its monstrous passenger along with it. With a sighing motion, the Overlord relaxed its grip on the hyperspace ring and shrugged it off, a couple of tentacles holding it long enough to enable the thrusters that would move the ring into a stable orbit around the DSIII.

The Overlord itself began in its slow, ponderous way towards the massive battle station. As it approached, Namtaru peered through one of the transparent membranes that covered the sack he rode in, and marveled at the immensity of it. Never in his short life, or the long life of the swarm that he had access to the memories of, had he seen or imagined something like this.

With a squelching sound, a specialized antenna emerged from a pocket on the Overlord, and broadcast on the frequency it had been provided. After communicating with the automated docking computers, the Overlord flew into a bay that had been designated for the ambassador for the Zerg, and settled its prodigous weight with a sigh upon the smooth metal floor.

Another squelching sound, and Namtaru himself disengaged from his conveyance. With a deep rattling noise, he drew in a breath in this new environment. The sharp, acrid tastes of various oils and chemicals that would normally be found in hangers and maintenance bays assaulted his finely tuned sense of smell, so he pushed them aside and focused on the slightly fainter ones. Yes, there they were, lifeforms, millions of them. His face was unable to show emotions in the normal way, but he had been practicing some humanesque expressions on the journey, and he found that if he opened his mouth a certain way, it gave an uncanny resemblance to a smile. He did that now, as the myriad possibilities this amount of life afforded raced down his complex neural pathways. His brief moment of imagination passed as he noticed an organic smell getting stronger.

With a woosh, the door to the hanger opened, and a minor functionary emerged. From the sudden scent of fear Namtaru could tell that this human was not expecting a being like him or his transportation when Namtaru's arrival was announced. The man managed to hide his feelings well, though, and, after the proper introductions were made, Namtaru was led to his quarters.

Once alone there, he opened up several pouches in his carapace and released small creatures of various kinds. In the same way, back in the hanger, the Overlord disgorged the rest of its passengers. Some of them, like the Zerglings in the hanger, were designed to prevent awkward sniffing around, but most of the creatures scuttled through maintenence crawlways and power trunks, insinuating themselves into the other ambassadors' quarters and popular meeting places as best they could, nestling next to the other hidden microphones.

Namtaru attached another creature to the computer interface in his quarters, which began to sift through the unimaginable quantities of data and compile it into useful forms. Namtaru was going to need to meet the other denizens of this station soon, and he wanted to know exactly what he was getting into.