Stargate: Unity, 4th Series
Episode 2: Reconnaissance
Chapter 1:
Atlantis Gate room, incoming wormhole. Atlantis had been out of contact with earth since the Daedalus left communications range because the journey from the Milky Way back to the Pegasus galaxy had depleted their ZPM's and so no one knew about the situation on earth.
Just a regular day in the Pegasus galaxy, if there is such a thing, when all of a sudden alarms go off followed by the announcement from Chuck; "Unscheduled Off world Activation!"
Mr Woolsey was on the scene within seconds, "What is it?"
"Uhm..." Chuck replied, struggling to find words due to his sheer surprise. "It's Earth, sir."
"What? How are they dialling us? Lower the shield and have Col. Sheppard meet me in the gate room."
John came running down the hall just as Woolsey reached the bottom of the staircase, Woolsey quickly briefed john and the two stood in the middle of the room awaiting their guests.
A few seconds later a man dressed in full formal military attire stepped through the gate, followed by another younger looking man in casual jeans and a T-shirt.
"Sheppard!" Came the enthusiastic and slightly sarcastic voice of Gen. O'Neill, "How go things in the Pegasus Galaxy?"
"Ahh well the usual sir, Wraith are evil, Rodney is Cranky, you get the idea." Replied john going along with the generals pleasantries, until Woolsey stepped up.
"How did you dial Pegasus? And who's your friend?" Asked Woolsey, referring to the man, holding a rather large case, that came through the gate a few seconds after O'Neill.
"Nice to see you to. This is Michael Banks, and he could probably answer your first question easier." Replied jack, gesturing for Mike to go ahead.
Mike who was half out of phase taking in the wonderment of the Atlantis gate room suddenly snapped back into the real world and proceeded to explain the complicities of creating a ZPM.
John and Woolsey simply gave him a blank look, not understanding that he was saying he had built a ZPM, and after a few seconds john reached for his radio "McKay you might wanna get up here."
"Care to put that in simpler words?" responded Woolsey.
"I made a ZPM."
Now the two of them just looked shock, with Sheppard looking at O'Neill for confirmation.
"Ohh yeah." He said looking as happy as ever.
5 minutes later McKay came running into the gate room asking what was happening, before he realised that John and whoever else was gone.
"They went to power distribution." Shouted chuck from the railings of the control room.
"Awww c'mon! I just got here," Replied an angry McKay running back down the hall.
"It's about time!" said Sheppard looking at Rodney as he entered the room.
"Well I was uhm, ahh, having lunch with Zelenka, talking about shields and what not." Replied a bumbling McKay.
"You were with Dr. Keller weren't you?"
"Yeah." He answered, slightly embarrassed. "So what do we got? Who's he and what is he doing to the ZPM Interface machine?"
"I'm Mike Banks, and I am in the process of establishing a connection between the city and your new ZPM." Replied Mike, looking up to see the Doctors reaction.
"What? Where'd you find it? And how'd you get here? The Daedalus is still 3 weeks out. Unless you found two and the SGC has one." McKay going slightly crazy trying to fill in the gaps that he hadn't been told about yet. "Is that it?" Pointing to a device in Michaels hands about twice the size of a regular ZPM and the rough shape of a naquadah generator, "why does it look different? Are you sure it's a ZPM, because that looks like a naquadah generator and I have had this dream before. Any minute now a giant whale swallows Atlantis whole. Ohh this is not good."
"You dream about ZPM's?" said John with a laugh.
"Hey Sam what ya got goin on?" Said Cam walking into her lab.
"I'm just going over the sensor data from the Daedalus. It's not very complete but from what I can gather, Col. Caldwell's estimate of 700 ships may have been an understatement."
"Always a bucket of fun aye?" replied Cam trying to lighten the mood.
"Well I'm sorry, but this is really not looking good. I need to inform Gen. Landry"
"That's where I was headed. Gen. Landry just told me to pick you up on the way, we got a mission."
"But I'm not part of S-" Said Sam, surprised by Landry's order, before she was cut off.
"Generals orders!" Cam shouted back down the hall as he headed off to the briefing room.
"Tiel'c, Vala, where are Colonels Mitchell and Carter?" Enquired the experienced Gen. Landry while drinking a cup of coffee and briefly scanning a report.
"I am unsure, general Landry." Replied Tiel'c
"Were here sir!" Said Cam, entering the room. "Sam's right behind me."
"Sorry sir, I was just going over the sensor data." Came the apology from Sam following Cam into the room.
"Alright then, this is all we know so far, the confederation consists of Atleast 2 planets, 1 of them being agricultural, and that they have 700 ships."
"Actually sir I've calculated that there could have been an excess of 800+ ships coming from the planet alone. The Daedalus counted 700 separate locations of energy signatures, but the energy pattern didn't fit for some of them, there must have been more than 1 ship in roughly the same location as another 1 for atleast 100 of the energy signatures." Said carter, stopping Landry before he continued further
"700, 800, 2000! The point is we need more Intel, that's why I'm sending SG-1 in a cargo ship to check out their home planet, we've also sent probes to gates within 300 light years of it to track down and map the Aschen Confederation."
"I'm sorry," Started Vala, "Why 300 light years?"
"It's the approximate maximum range of their Stargate since they don't have a DHD to compensate for changes in stellar drift. That's how we were able to determine the position of their homeworld in the first place, well, that and some help from the future." Sam informed her.
"2 were inhabited by the Aschen, 1 of which had Goa'uld structures half in ruins around the gate. It is possible they may have found a cartouche, in which case we may be a lot worse off." Continued Gen. Landry
"We'll check it out sir." Cam responded.
Sam was still curious as to why she was going on this mission. "General Landry, I have work to do, their having trouble with a few things in the new ship factory in India, and I am no longer part of SG-1."
"I'm sending Dr. Lee; your expertise will be needed on this mission."
"What about Daniel?"
"Dr. Jackson left about 30 minutes ago for Atlantis; I'm surprised you didn't know about it."
