As the moon slowly rose over twilight sky, Edward looked into the eyes of the wraith before him. He fired three times into its head with his pistol. The beast fell to the ground in a pool of blood. As the silence resumed, Edward looked around, his team moved out of the dense forest.
"Did he kill the bastard thing?" John asked while lighting a cigarette.
"Yeah john, it's dead." Smith said while walking out from cover. She looked at the body. "It must have taken a hell of a lot of bullets by the look of it. How many times you shoot it Edd?"
"About twenty, I think it had just fed." Edward replied.
"Well, one thing's for sure, it isn't getting up again. And it only took you what, two minutes to kill it?" The team commander, colonel Manning, noted. "Well, we were busy taking out a squad of the things, how'd you get left behind Major Saunders?"
"I fell into a dike," He replied, "you didn't notice because it was dark and you were killing wraith everywhere."
"Oh, so we left you behind then?" He said scratching his head. "Sorry about that Edd."
"Where's your P-90?" John asked as he looked around the ground with the torch on his rifle's holder. "You probably dropped it when you fell into that hole." He sounded unconvinced that Edward had fallen into the dike.
"Hey," Colonel Manning exclaimed, "treat officers with respect Mellor! He's been through a-hell-of-a-lot worse than you!"
"Where to now sir?" Edward asked while refilling his pistol.
"Head back to the gate." He looked at the half moon obstructed by the large wraith complex. "We found a base, that's all they wanted to know."
Edward watched as the moon slowly retreated behind the base. Not two minutes ago it had been shining brightly over them, now it sent them into a cold blackness that obscured anything. A cloud front started to move through the area, blotting out the stars.
And so the demise of the wraith begins. He thought as the last star in his sight was blotted out by the dark beast of cloud. A flash went out from it.
"Great, a storm!" John shouted. "What better to help us on our way back to the gate?"
Another flash of light went out, this time it was followed by a humming noise, then an explosion. Their sight was instantly filled with a bright blue light. They all turned around.
"Hell no!" Manning cried.
They looked at the so called storm clouds. Or what they knew now to be a hive and its escorts. The rain of fire blundered the wraith base into a raging inferno of red and blue. Several volleys returned to the hive, but they were soon silenced. The maelstrom soon obliterated the base. The fire burning out from it lit the great plain up like a searchlight.
"Why did they destroy their own base?" John asked while running to the Stargate.
"They're territorial! Maybe this was another alliance of wraith to that one!" Edward replied.
"At least we still know they're temperamental!" Smith added as she dialled the new Pegasus' base address.
"Well, two years and you thought they would have realised they need to pull together." Edward said while watching the whoosh of the gate. "At least it's easier to beat them when they haven't got ZPMs."
"Did you get it?" The wraith commander asked as the fighter flew up to the great hive ship.
"Yes," The pilot replied.
"Excellent. Bring it back to the ship so I can deliver it to our queen."
"I will not." The transmission cut out.
"Seven hives have just exited hyperspace!" An officer said. "They are charging weapons!"
"Hey, can you see that?" Edward asked Manning as he was about to walk through the gate.
"Is that a dart?" He looked through his sniper scope. "It's a dart! Where's it going?"
"Not that, that!" Edward pointed to the sky. A thundering storm of blue plasma flew down to the planet. It stuck a cruiser and ripped it in half. The hive struggled to move out of the way and soon descended. "Get through the gate!"
The hive was less than one hundred meters above them before Manning moved into the gate.
The two men stepped through the gate and cried mutually "Activate the shield!"
A slight humming filled their ears as the shield activated then a loud crash against it before the gate closed.
"What was that Manning?" John Sheppard asked from the control room.
"A wraith hive ship came in and destroyed the base." Manning started.
"Then it got destroyed from ships in orbit and started to crash land on us." Edward ended.
"Seems like their still territorial, I'll tell Woolsey." John said. "Report for debriefing in two hours. Clean yourselves up first."
"Yes sir." They walked out of the gate room through the left exit. The Asgard super alloy was in everything here. The walls, the doors, the ceilings and doorways, all were built using it. The new base was more secure than Atlantis, which had been left in orbit over earth for protection, and was deemed better than Atlantis for attack purposes.
Ten plasma cannon batteries (five in a battery), twenty rail gun batteries (ten in a battery), four ground to space Asgard Plasma Beam Weapon stations (Two APBWs in each station) and nearly two hundred missile silos (twenty missiles in each silo). A shield generator (with twenty emitters) guarded from attack and nearly thirty Point Defence rail guns were all around the base. It was the largest off world structure built in tau'ri history. It was also home to a ship construction space station.
It took three years to build a BC-304 using one of the dry docks. It had three dry docks in place. One BC-304 was already one and a half years underway and two more had just started being built.
Two other construction facilities had been built in the Milky Way and the fleet now consisted of fourteen BC-304s and seven, new, C-305s. The new cruiser was made to patrol tau'ri protected planets from the wraith in Pegasus, and other hostiles in the Milky Way. It is the first ship to be designed to have Asgard level technology on board.
"So," Mr. Woolsey started, making sure to watch them all for the slightest hint of a lie, "the wraith discovered you and you fought them off. Then a hive attacked the base? Then it was attacked from orbit and crash landed on the Stargate right after you went through?"
"Yes sir, that is correct." Manning said.
"So, there was a base there, but no longer?"
"Yes sir."
"Well then, you did fill the mission parameters and also told us a great deal about their dealings with one another. You managed to give me more than I asked for colonel."
"Thank you sir."
"But, the wraith did find out about your incursion?"
"Yes sir."
"Well then," He looked at the papers in front of him. "I have some work to do before the Daedalus returns to us."
They stood up, saluted, and then left the briefing room.
"Well, that was less nail biting than I thought it would be Edward." Manning said.
"Yeah, I know what you mean Alex."