A/N: Apologies, but for the present time my alternate version of Stargate Atlantis is on hold as I'm having trouble writing it. In the meantime here's something which has been on my mind for a while now.
"The Universe is a dangerous place. But in our future my crew and I fight to make it safe. I am Dylan Hunt, Captain of the Andromeda Ascendant, and these are our adventures."
The Andromeda Ascendant was surrounded by the commonwealth fleet in orbit of Tarn-Vedra, two of the so called Triumvir cruisers were at the centre of the fleet beside the Andromeda, deep inside the Andromeda Dylan sat at his desk looking up at Tri-Lorn and Tri-Laurent.
"The answer was no two years ago, and it's still no." Dylan drew in a breath. "I have no desire to run for the position of triumvir; I'm a soldier not a position."
Tri-Laurent didn't look pleased with the outcome but Tri-Lorn smiled.
"Listen Captain, this isn't about what you want. The Nietzscheans may have stood down and your display above Tarazed proved that the Commonwealth was far from weak and with the Pyrians help the Magog world ship has been destroyed, but we've got reason to believe that a number of satellite ships were able to escape the destruction. Even without the Abyss guiding them they're still a massive threat to the rest of the known worlds-"
Whatever Tri-Laurent planned to say was cut off when Tri-Lorn intervened.
"Which is why the people will feel a lot safer with the first complete High Guard battle group under the command of Admiral Dylan Hunt."
Tri-Lorn reached into his pocket and supplied a fresh rank pin denoting his promotion.
"Congratulations Admiral."
"What are you doing Tri-Lorn? We need Hunt to figure head the Commonwealth." Tri-Laurent clearly felt unsecure in his position even with the renewed peace.
"Exactly, Hunt's a military officer, one of the best, and the whole three galaxies knows it." Lorn was defending his actions to his fellow Triumvir.
"Don't I have a say?" Dylan looked up at his two superiors after studying the new rank pins.
"No, you're a soldier, you follow orders, and I know you'll do the right thing." Tri-Lorn gestured to the door. "Tri-Laurent, I believe we have other matters to attend to."
Tri-Laurent left while Tri-Lorn sat down.
"Admiral, you have to understand that the first High Guard battle group is a work in progress. It will obviously include you flagship the Andromeda along with four Siege Perilous class destroyers currently under the command of Captain Ryan on the Wrath of Achilles. There will also be two Drop ship carriers with full lancer contingents. There are also three Eternal Vigilance class scout ships."
Dylan looked up again still shocked into silence.
"Captain Ryan has my orders for your fleet, the Achilles will arrive in five hours, till we meet again Captain."
This time Tri-Lorn did leave, heading out of Dylan's office to be escorted by two lancers at station to his transport.
"Andromeda?" Dylan asked, unsure as to what had just happened.
"Here Admiral," Andromeda's core AI appeared onscreen behind Dylan. "Congratulations."
Dylan smiled.
"Can you hear anything?"
"No Admiral. I hear nothing, to what to you refer?"
"I'm trying to hear the other shoe drop." Dylan smiled at the generated image of his friend. "Please call Trance to my office, oh and don't tell anyone about the promotion, assemble the command crew after my meeting with Trance."
"Aye, Admiral."
Andromeda disappeared from the screen to be replaced by the seal of the Commonwealth.
"Harper?" Rommie ducked her head around the door to the darkened observation deck to see her chief engineer Seamus Harper surrounded by empty bottles of alcoholic drinks.
"Here Rom-doll, the Harper is in," Harper's speech was completely slurred, he was clearly drunk.
"Harper, you're inebriated," Rommie sat down beside him.
"Yeah well it's only fair," Harper said bitterly as his head fell onto Rommie's shoulder.
Rommie moved one of her hands to rustle Harper's hair.
"What do you mean?"
Harper closed his eyes sucking in a breath of air as a tear made its way down his face.
"It's just that, everyone has a home Rommie, even Dylan, Tarn-Vedra's been restored meanwhile Earth. Good old Terra's gone, blown up by the Nietzscheans, my home gone, and you know what's worse I can't even hate Dylan. No matter how much I want to blame him, I know that he's a good man and he'd do anything to have saved it."
Rommie moved her head to rest on Harper.
"You're not the only one to have been born on Earth Seamus; I was born at the Newport News orbital shipyards." Rommie traced Harper's hair line with her hand massaging his scalp. "And you're wrong, you do have a home Harper, so long as I can still think and reason this will be your home. You are home, and no matter what we fix each other remember."
Rommie held him tighter as the last walls broke down and Harper told her everything about him.
Rhade stood at the centre of Andromeda's command deck looking out at the Commonwealth.
"This is Commander Rhade to Triumvir Lorn, we are ready to transfer the flag, Captain Hunt will be ready to take co-ordinated command as soon as his meeting is over."
Tri-Lorn appeared on the screen smiling wryly. "Transfer of the flag acknowledged, don't worry about your family, we'll keep them safe."
"Thank you Tri-Lorn, and we'll hold the front."
Tri-Lorn disappeared as the two Triumvir cruisers broke off.
"Andromeda, just what ships do we have with us?"
Of the three screens one resolved to show visuals of the fleet while the centre one showed the sensor telemetry and Andromeda appeared on the right screen.
"There are three DSX Siege Perilous class destroyers; one is the Resolution of Hector, Pillars of Hercules and the Fires of Orion. Also present are three LRS Eternal Vigilance class scouted ships named-"
"I don't need to know the names Andromeda," Rhade held up his hand. "Open a channel to Beka and Doyle on Tarn-Vedra station one."
"Sending transmission now,"
"It's not that I don't want the promotion, or I don't want to head up a battle group, it's just that it all seems too good to be true. I know the Abyss stirred up all the trouble in the tri-galaxies, it's just that I can't believe it caused all of the greed and destruction without influencing corrupt and bad people to begin with." Dylan looked to Trance who stood unperturbed by Dylan's rant. "I guess with all the peace and goodwill I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I don't ever want it to drop, I've got everything fixed. What I'm trying to ask Trance whether this is the perfect possible future we've been hoping for?"
Trance looked trouble.
"There is no such thing as a perfect future, but this is as close as I believe we are to get at present."
"Look Trance, please just tell me, will there be any trouble?" Dylan looked desperate.
"Dylan, I can't say, you know if I could I would." Trance looked genuinely troubled. "I'm sorry,"
Dylan nodded.
"Andromeda?" The core Ai did not manifest this time, instead the holographic form appeared next to Trance.
"Admiral?"
"Assemble the senior crew on the main observation deck in ten minutes."
"Yes sir,"
The hologram disappeared as Dylan and Trance left the office.
Once there Dylan saw Rhade and the returned Rev Bem waiting them, the Commonwealth fleet could be seen in the window above the curve of Tarn-Vedra.
"Well, this crew seems a lot smaller than I remember." Dylan looked around at the two people in the room, he was about to say more when Rommie and Harper entered.
Harper was leaning heavily into Rommie, his left hand was holding her right, for her part though Rommie didn't seen perturbed by the arrangement. Dylan and Rev raised their eyebrows while Rhade started to snigger, however he was silenced when Rommie sent him a death glare.
"Well, er… now that we're all here-" Dylan was interrupted by the two blonde women who came onto the deck.
"Aren't you forgetting someone," Beka smiled as she walked in followed by Doyle. She walked to stand by Rhade.
"Doyle?" Dylan was shocked to see her back on board.
"Seefra, Tarn-Vedra is my home; I would do anything for it; however you people, each and every one of you would do anything to save the lives of others. I think it's time I learnt why,"
Dylan smiled and looked once more at his now complete command crew.
"Alright, the Commonwealth has assigned this fleet as the first high guard battle group under my command, I've been promoted to Admiral,"
"Congratulations boss,"
"Good work,"
Dylan let the commendations wash over him temporarily before continuing.
"Yeah, well the Wrath of Achilles will be joining us with our first assignment, Beka I want you to coordinate our flight with the other ships in the fleet. Rev, I need you to go through our scientific databases. Rhade, I'd like you to come up with an optimal fleet positioning for when the Achilles arrives. Now Harper…" Dylan stopped finally noticing that Harper and Rommie were still holding each other's hands and Harper was still leaning on Rommie's shoulder, Dylan caught the smell of alcohol. "When you sober up, I'd like you and Rommie to talk with the other engineers and ship AIs to gain an inventory of the fleets' capabilities. Doyle, I don't really know what to ask you to do, so just check over the Andromeda's systems. Dismissed."
Dylan made his way out followed by Beka and the others except for Rommie and Harper who had turned to face the fleet in the window.
The Nietzschean battle cruiser flew in a series of evasive manoeuvres, covered by magog swarm ships, the ships pilot pulled himself up onto the console his bone blades were covered in blood from his fight with the magog.
He turned the ship to see the bulk of the Magog satellite ship on the sensors, the swarm ships were leaving. The pilot smiled, he'd survived.
A chime caught his attention; there was a massive power build up from the Magog ship.
"No,"
But it was too late, the PSP tower on the flying moon flashed red as the projected singularity flew from the launcher heading towards the cruiser.
The Nietzschean did the best he could but the Projected Singularity still smashed straight through the ship, metal screamed in protest as secondary explosions finished the two halves of the ship to atoms.
The Magog watched the destruction; even without the Abyss guiding them they still had a lot of knowledge about other universes and they knew where to hide to gather their strength, a second satellite ship joined the first, a flotilla of swarm ships stayed at the ready.
With a flash the blue tesseract of the route of ages appeared in front of them, the route existed in all universes and had more than one aperture in the single timeline.
After waiting the requisite time the Magog ships entered the route heading into another universe.
The slip-portal opened and the last of Dylan's new fleet arrived; the destroyer Wrath of Achilles came out of the slip-stream to face the Andromeda.
"This is Captain Ryan to Admiral Hunt, permission to come aboard sir?" Ryan, the avatar of the Achilles was already in a slip fighter to make the trip.
"This is Admiral Hunt on the Andromeda, permission to board is granted."
Ryan's slip fighter sped across the distance to the Andromeda's main hanger.
When he emerged he saw Admiral Hunt and Captain Valentine waiting for him.
"Admiral Hunt, sir permission to come aboard?" Ryan saluted his superior.
Dylan returned the salute.
"At ease Captain, walk with us," Ryan joined Dylan and Beka as the left the bay. "So what pray tell is our first assignment Captain?"
"Well Admiral, following leads from a slip-scout we believe we've found a staging area for the remaining Magog forces, at least two satellite ships have been sighted in the Drazoni system on Orions arm in the Milky Way galaxy. Our orders are to seek them out and destroy them."
Dylan nodded.
"Good the fleet will be ready shortly; I'll have Rhade show you the positioning for the fleet before we depart."
Ryan nodded as he passed a flexi over to Hunt before leaving the corridor and heading back to the hanger deck.
When Dylan and Beka arrived on the command centre Trance and Doyle were on the bank of controls to the left of the slip-stream navigation console while Harper and Rommie were on the left.
"All ships report ready Admiral," Rommie reported from her station, not looking up. "And I'm ready for full combat, all AP tanks are full and we have a full complement of defensive and offensive kinetic kill missiles along with Smart arrow attack vehicles and smart missiles."
"We also have a large bay full of hunter-killer drones and enough raw materials to build a solar system smashing arsenal," Harper chimed in over Rommie's shoulder.
Rommie turned and mock-glared at him, Harper however smirked back causing Rommie to roll her eyes and turn away smiling slightly herself.
"They've been doing that for a while," Dylan turned to see Rhade once more in full high guard uniform. "I've gone over the data and have plotted a route to the Drazoni system."
"Good," Dylan turned to Beka, who in turn nodded heading to the slip-stream controls. "Andromeda open a channel to the fleet, tell them to follow us out to slip-stream.
The Andromeda pulled out of orbit heading towards the nearest slip-point, the Wrath of Achilles pulled in front of the Andromeda while the Fires of Orion and Pillars of Hercules took up a position of thesides. The Resolution of Hector pulled back to the Eternal Vigilance class ships and the Lancer drop ships as the glowing blue slip-point opened with the Andromeda taking point.
Inside the Drazoni system a slip-portal opened and the Eternal Vigilance class scout ship emerged, inside the command deck, a smaller and darker version of the Andromeda's.
The Perseid captain looked up at the sensor displays.
"Fenrir, report status," The Perseid examined all of the sensor displays and could see anything more than asteroids within a single AU.
"Scanning, no traces of any ships in the system, shall I call the fleet," The male avatar of the Fenrir had appeared beside his Perseid commander.
"Yes, call the Andromeda," turning the large chair that controlled the slipstream navigation to the weapons officer. "Ready all four missile tubes and keep the AP canons on standby."
"Yes sir," the weapons officer was a Nietzschean female, her bone blades glistened in the low lighting.
"Captain, the Andromeda and her task force have arrived,"
The Perseid turned to the three view screens to see the Andromeda, Wrath of Achilles and Fires of Orion take point while the Resolution of Hector and Pillars of Hercules hung back to give the lancers and the other two Eternal Vigilance class ships cover.
"Rommie, you reading anything?" Dylan looked back from his station at the front of command.
"Negative, reports confirmed from the fleet, nothing for three AU." Rommie didn't look up from her display, but Harper seemed to see something on the sensors.
"Boss, I'm reading a massive gravitational anomaly, it seems to…"
Whatever Harper was going to say was cut off when Andromeda's core AI appeared on the main screen.
"Detecting multiple slipstream events, a Magog satellite ship has entered the system along with several hundred swarm ships, distance is three light minutes. At their current velocity they'll be here within six minutes."
"Bring us about, tell the Achilles and Orion to fire missiles at the swarm ships, use the destroyers to clear a path to the satellite ship." Dylan was on his feet; in battle he was never comfortable enough to stay still for long.
"Achilles and Orion have engaged the swarm ships." Rommie reported.
The two Siege Perilous class ships opened up firing kinetic kill missiles from up two one hundred of their missile launchers. The missiles speed through the distance at .95 of the speed of light, some of the swarm ships were instantly destroyed, however the swarm ships quickly moved apart and returned fire with their point singularity projectors.
The Achilles and Orion instantly began evasive manoeuvres; the destroyers fired defensive missiles to try to intercept the incoming black holes. The Achilles swerved at right angles to its pervious course, but it wasn't enough, one of the PSPs hit home, ploughing straight through the hull. Ryan gripped his console and gasped in pain, as the whole ship pitched to the side and the organic crew flew across the room, Ryan tried to return fire but the control grid had taken a direct impact; that hurt.
"The Wrath of Achilles has been knocked out of the fight," Rommie looked at Dylan as she added her report.
Dylan nodded in turn.
"Rhade, has the satellite ship reached a light minute distance?"
Rhade examined the display.
"No, they're holding at eighty light seconds," Rhade looked to his CO. "Shall I open fire?"
Dylan shook his head.
"There are too many swarm ships, if we launch from this distance the magog will have over a minute to intercept, that's too long."
"And how many of us will die in the meantime," It was the AI of the Hercules that had appeared on Andromeda's screen as the ship moved into strike the satellite ships.
"Dammit, get the Hercules up now,"
On the screen Hercules appeared once more.
"Admiral, I am executing an attack run now,"
"Hercules, break off now, that's an order!"
But Dylan was too late; the Hercules had opened up with direct offensive missiles, all of which were intercepted by swarm ships. The satellite ship then saw fit to return the favour; a single PSP was fired from the Magog ship.
The Hercules moved down along its z-axis, but it wasn't fast enough, the PSP smashed through one of the top pylons completely dislodging it from the ship. With the explosion the Hercules spun out of control while the satellite ship moved forwards.
"Boss, their targeting us with PSPs," Harper said, typing furiously at the displays.
"Correction, they're firing, six singularities incoming." Rommie added, reaching over Harper to make some adjustments.
"Beka, full evasive!"
The Andromeda spun and rolled on its axis allowing four of the PSPs to go through the gaps in the ships super structure, while the fifth missed completely, however the sixth grazed the starboard side of the ships main section.
Sparks flew from displays, Dylan held onto his console as hard as he could, out of the corner of his eyes he could see Beka fall to the ground while Rhade held on for dear life.
Harper had stumbled forward, just before his head would have impacted the console Rommie grabbed him and pulled him, in order to stop him falling again Rommie pulled Harper's right arm over her shoulders.
The satellite ship moved past the Andromeda and her escorts towards the gravity well.
"Boss, I'm getting some strange readings,"
On the screen the satellite ship spun on its axis as the blue tesseract formed in front of it.
"The route of ages," Dylan muttered beneath his breath as the satellite ship entered.
"Admiral, the Hercules is out of control," Rommie looked up from her displays to see the Hercules spin into theroute behind them.
The blue tesseract flashed and closed as the route sealed itself. Dylan closed his eyes for a second.
"All stations stand down; send a tech team to help the crew of the Achilles."
Dylan turned and left the deck clearly annoyed.
"Harper you can remove your arm now," Rommie didn't look up from her work as Harper continued to lean on her.
"What if I don't want to," Harper smirked at her, Rommie turned and looked at him with her eyebrows raised, Harper nodded and pulled back.
Sometime later after the fleet had righted itself Dylan, Ryan and the other ship captains sat in Andromeda's briefing room, Dylan stood at the head.
"Alright, people the Hercules fell through the route of ages into another universe, we need to organise an SAR mission through," Dylan took in the looks of the ship captains. "Trance has agreed to lead of fleet through to the universe the Hercules was sent. As we don't know what is on the other side, the Fenrir will go first escorted by the Resolution of Hector and the Fires of Orion and the Andromeda will follow with the Wrath of Achilles taking up the rear with the other ships. Understood?"
The others nodded as Dylan left.
"We ready?" Dylan strode into the command centre as the ships fell into position.
"Yeah boss, Andromeda is ready, Rommie's in top shape to go through," Harper told Dylan.
"The fleet also reports ready," Rhade added from the other side of the deck.
"Okay Trance you have the conn."
Trance nodded as she took the controls and as one the fleet of High Guard ships moved to the edge of the tesseract as a series of courier ships sped off to slip-stream while the fleet exited the known universe.