5: Chocky's Thunder
by chaos_eternus
Chocky glowed with affection as she watched over Albertine's work. Whilst she had never intended for the government to get their hands on her technologies before they were well and truly out of the bottle, it appeared she had chosen well with Admiral Thompson. He was determined to see them used wisely, and was more then willing to protect her children from such unscrupulous organisations as the surviving NID and to see this world was protected from the barbaric Goa'uld.
She frowned inwardly; the Goa'uld had forced a major rethink. She didn't like the Goa'uld at all, but had hoped this world would be ready for them before they found it once more. It appeared she had missed many signs of Goa'uld influence but in truth the sheer number of religious factions and fanatics should have warned her. That kind of collective damage to any species psyche only ever comes from their ‘primitive' ancestors having proof of god-like beings forced on them, a crime which the hated Goa'uld and the wiser, but not entirely blameless Asgard were often guilty of.
Of course, proof didn't necessarily mean actual god-like powers such as those possessed by the Ascendants or the rare true ‘Higher' power, more often then not, proof just meant technology. It was a very wise man indeed who stated that ‘sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'.
The Goa'uld they did this for power, the Asgard as a tool to try and encourage growth. In many ways, that was a mistake. Religion would help you only so far and then, unless you were very careful, it had the potential to become a bar to progress.
Her way was slower, subtler. It required a lot of thought and time, but the masters monitoring her work felt she had proven the idea quite well. Change a society from within; introduce new technologies and ideas through carefully chosen individuals at the right time and change would happen. Using the ‘God Act' of the Goa'uld and Asgard did guarantee change, but it also guaranteed damage and that was something she wished to avoid.
Who knows, she might even graduate this time.
‘Glancing' once over each of her charges, not all of whom were known to the military and deliberately so, she then turned and almost frowned. A strange leadenness lay over her link to her body, almost muting it. She had felt this for a while but strange as it was, the link was still there and she knew her ‘self' was protected so it shouldn't be a thing to worry about.
Chocky made a note to discuss it with the Masters and then flashed out from Albertine's lab at RAF/RSS St Athan, pulling on the thread that linked her to her body, heading home at speeds no hyperdrive could hope to match. She cried out suddenly as she hit a solid barrier surrounding her home system. This was wrong! There wasn't supposed to be a barrier to her here!
She felt and probed the barrier, fearful and intrigued. Then she ‘stiffened' and cursed in horrified wonder, someone had managed to expand the field of a ZPE generator, expanding it so it covered the whole system.
Ingenious, but her people were all psychic, to put it in human terms, every meber of her people had latent telepathic abilities, and a significant number had other capabilities as well. They had been forced to stop use of the ZPE generators because of this; the generators had the unfortunate side effect of drawing power from any being with extra-sensory perception in preference to the universe itself, quickly draining them until their entire soul was devoured by the machine.
It explained the strangeness affecting the link to her body, indeed, it explained far too much, but who would have the capability and the knowledge?
The ZPE technology had been discovered by a few others and it was one of the technologies available for disclosure to other races, but to do this the being responsible would have had to have known the exact ZPE pattern needed for her home system.
That was one of their most closely guarded secrets and it wasn't as if there were any of the Generators left in system for the unknown to have captured and studied.
This was almost inconceivable.
Her entire people were now in the grips of such a device, so someone out there now had more energy at their control then two exploding supernovas, this could not be good. She probed quickly around the field and soon came across what she was looking for, a Goa'uld Ha'tak entering the field, heading towards what could only be the station that powered this field.
The Goa'uld of course, who else?
But which one?
The base station was far too deep within the field for her to influence. She would need help. It would have to be fully corporeal beings too, not ascendants like the Ancients or half and halves like her own people.
But there was a species she could call in a few markers with…
Chocky span around and headed back to earth, hoping the Tau'ri as they now styled themselves could help her and her people before the ZPE field cut the lifeline to her body, killing her.