AN: Welcome to the fourth book in the Iconia Continuum series, The Hope of Iconia. While it will seem that we are doing this just for the sake of confusing you, everything we do in this story is leading to several highly important events which take place in later chapters.

We are publishing this now, without the entire story finished, as a teaser of what is to come, as well as to show you that it IS on the way. We hope to be able to start publishing regularly very soon. Please let us know what you think. Reviews are important.

We do not own Stargate, Star Trek, Eureka, Battlestar Galactica (old or new), Doctor Who, or Star Wars. We wouldn't be writing Fanfiction if we did.

Chapter 1

Daniel Jackson looked around him. The ground was shaking, and several crevices had opened up around his feet. Above him, the star was flaring brightly as the sphere moved. The fields which were designed to hold the star in position were working incredibly hard. They used the largest repulser beams the Q had ever seen to keep the star centered in the sphere, and they were flaring as the sphere shook back and forth.

Daniel sent his mind out to assess the situation, and he was amazed to see that Iconia Prime was flying through an immense wormhole.

"What's happening?

Daniel turned at the inquiry, and saw Ganos Lal running toward him and Vala.

"Somehow, the sphere is in a wormhole," he answered in amazement.

"How can we be in a wormhole?" Vala demanded. "No wormhole is that large."

"This one is." It was Jack Carter. He too, had examined the situation, and come up with the same data.

"How?" Ganos Lal asked again. She had been the Borg Queen for several millennia, and Carter decided that if she didn't know how a wormhole could be as large as this one, it was a very scary situation.

He was about to articulate his feelings when he saw something that didn't bode well for the population of Paris below them.

Out in the ocean, a wave was forming. It was massive. He started to yell for Sarah, then decided there wasn't time. Instead, he acted. The water was receding from the city, and the Seine was starting to form waterfalls where it dumped into the sea.

"We've got to do something!" Vala exclaimed.

"Already doing it," Jack answered. Those on the top of the cliff watched as people dematerialized on the city streets.

Then, the ground shook again, and the cliff they were standing on started to crumble. "I've got it," Daniel said as they found themselves floating. The ground fell away in a landslide beneath their feet.

Outside the sphere, there were flashes like sparks all around. They seemed to be growing in intensity, then as suddenly as a submarine that had blown its ballast breaching the surface, the sphere popped out of the wormhole into normal space.

But unlike before, they weren't in interstellar space. This was intergalactic. They were far between galaxies, with no source of light for millions of AUs.

Where there was once a hilltop, overlooking Paris, a voice called out, "Is everyone alright? My internal sensors are down for the moment."

Daniel looked around and took stock of those floating in midair with him. "We're okay, Sarah."

"Before my sensors went offline, there was a landslide detected where you are. Were my readings in error?"

"They were right, Sarah," Jack told her. "Daniel kept us from falling."

"I'm very glad to hear that. Sensors are online in Paris, but I'm not detecting the population. Am I to assume that one of you dealt with that as well?"

"Jack did," Marie replied.

"I'm glad. My sensor net isn't designed for tsunamis."

"Neither is mine, Sarah," Vala agreed.

They settled onto stable ground near Paris and then started to make their way to the city. There were several mild tremors as they approached, and during one, they watched as the Eiffel tower swayed ominously. For a moment, they thought it would come crashing down, and indeed would have had Daniel not stopped it with his mind.

Merlin and Che'Ryl flashed into existence beside them, as they picked their way over debris left from the tsunami. There had been several waves of water that had crashed in on the city, and much of it had been destroyed.

"How are the other cities?" Daniel asked.

"Most of those on the coast fared no better than Paris. Surprisingly, Global Dynamics and Eureka are largely unscathed, although they are mired in several feet of mud at the bottom of what used to be Lake Archimedes."

The original lake Archimedes on Earth had been a small mountain lake, but now, in Iconia Prime, it was approximately the size of Lake Michigan. It was still in the mountains, but they, like the lake itself, were supersized.

"Where is the water?" Marie asked.

"It has destroyed several of my nodes," came the voice of Sarah. "It has gone underground and flooded several computer cores."

"Uh, Sarah," Jack said, warily, "isn't your primary core under Lake Archimedes?"

"Yes, Jack, it is, but I have extreme redundancy in the sphere, you know that."

"So are you operating from a redundant system now?"

"Strictly speaking, you are usually talking to me through a redundant node, unless you are in Eureka or GD. However, I understand that you are asking if my primary computer core is flooded, and the answer is yes.

"Currently, I am utilizing the under-Denver site as my primary core."

"Why Denver?" Jackson asked.

It was Merlin who answered, rather than Sarah. "Even here, in Iconia Prime, Denver is the 'Mile High City'. That is in homage to the original. There is little risk of flooding at that altitude."

"It is also in an area that should be free from shifting ground," Vala added.

Daniel gave his wife a dirty look, but then commented, "That makes sense."

The continuum in the future…

The room was full of people. It was approximately thirty feet by fifty feet, and looked remarkably like a room where one would expect to find Perry Mason or Ben Matlock. The major difference was the absence of a jury and the addition of two more judges. The First was seated in the traditional prosecution spot while in the defendant's position sat a Sith. He was Kylo Ren, also known as Ben Solo.

Behind Kylo Ren and The First were the Q. There should have been no way for that many people to fit in such a small courtroom, but they managed, somehow.

"All rise!"

The three judges finally filed into the room and sat down behind their desks. It was a bewildering effect, because none of the three seemed to be in the center. They were all afforded equal prominence.

In no particular order, they were Merlin, Thor, and Teal'c. It seemed as though they eyed the sith for some time without speaking. The bailiff, who had ordered everyone to stand, now indicated that they could sit, and finally, Thor spoke.

"We are here for the trial of Ben Solo. As the keepers of the justice system of the continuum, we ask that everyone decide whether Ben will receive a fair trial given who we are."

There was general assent from most people, but one loud voice of dissent came from the defendant. "These three are outrageous! I demand a fair trial!" he shouted.

Merlin turned his gaze on the younger man and gave him a quizzical look. "I am your great-great grandfather, Ben. Thor and Teal'c are two of your grandfather's best friends. You could not have a more fair trial."

Ben shook his head in disgust. "That is supposed to make me believe you will give me a fair trial? I hardly think so. My paternal grandparents sat by and watched as their own son, my father, was tortured by my maternal grandfather! They are his friends? Forgive me if I'm not reassured."

"That seems to be a good place to start, Ben Solo," Teal'c said. "Tell us what you know about your maternal grandfather."

Ben shook his head in wonder. "I have studied everything possible. I have spent my entire life trying to live up to his example. He was a sith Lord."

"That's not quite correct," came a voice from the back of the room.

All eyes turned to look at the speaker. He was a man anywhere between twenty and ninety. One could not tell his age simply by looking. This was the continuum, after all. Nevertheless, the speaker was not Q. He was merely ascended.

"My father was not a Sith Lord, as you well know, Ben."

"He killed his master. In that moment, he was no longer the apprentice."

Luke Skywalker shook his head. "We are discussing semantics. Anakin Skywalker renounced the Sith at that moment. The 'lord' did not move into him."

"What are you saying, Uncle?" The familial title was spoken as if it were a filthy word.

Skywalker was calm as he approached the front of the room. "The lord is host to a vile creature. It controls the actions of its victim."

"I am not host to such a thing," Solo proclaimed, defiantly.

"You are not the lord," Merlin observed.

Ben sneered. "Regardless of that, I ask, what is worse? How long has this been going on? Since the beginning of the Sith and Jedi? How long could you have stopped it?" He looked at the room of Q and ascended. "The Q simply sit back and allow things to happen. They do nothing to change what is happening, even when it is within their power."

"To change things indiscriminately could cause irreparable damage to the timeline."

The younger man looked scornfully at Jackson, who had spoken. "You used the term indiscriminate. I did not. I am not speaking of indiscriminate changes. Rather judicious tweaks."

The First looked grave. "While your statements sound benign, they are misguided and reckless. Such 'judicious tweaks' as you say, could have further reaching ramifications than indiscriminate changes. Certainly, they would be harder to predict."

Seventy five years previous...

The passenger ship settled slowly to the ground. When the door opened upward, a couple stepped out. He was a medium height man, with a rim of silver hair around his head, and an air of authority. She was a woman two inches shorter, with a thick mane of red hair. They had come to Corellia in an attempt to find some of their own people.

"Do you think we'll find anyone here, Jean Luc?" she asked him.

"I sense someone we know, Beverly," he answered.

"I know. I feel it too, but I'm not sure who it is." She paused for a moment, reaching out with her mind. "There's someone else too, but it's not a Q."

He reached out, feeling his way along the tendril of thought that she had extended until he reached a destination. The mind that he found was familiar, but not.

"It's as if someone is fobbed. Was anyone sent here?"

"You would know that better than I would, Jean Luc. I certainly don't remember anything like that."

They left the spaceport, and were heading down a street, towards the mind, or minds, that they sensed. Suddenly, he stopped and pointed. "Look!"

Up ahead, they saw someone who looked very familiar. "Andy?" she breathed, astonished.

Andy was watching them, smiling as he always did. They hurried up to him, and he waved his arms, saying, "Comtroya!"

Picard was taken aback. "This is not Altair, Andy."

"No, but I always wanted to greet someone that way."

Picard scowled, and Beverly said, "Andy," reprovingly.

"I understand. It's one of the curses of being the Guardian. I feel like a bit of a pariah, because no one is ever glad to see me."

"Where are we, Andy?" Beverly asked. "It's been two years, and I don't know where we are."

"Well, you know you're on Corellia," the Guardian replied.

"Ok. When are we? Is this the future?"

"No, Ma'am. We're in a different galaxy, and this is millennia ago from your point of view."

"Why are we here?" Picard asked.

"You should know by now, Sir, that I will always answer that question the same way."

"It's the way things have to be," Picard supplied.

"Right."

"Can you tell us who we are sensing?" Beverly asked.

"I can do better than that," he said. "I'll take you to them."

"And it's not breaking the rules?"

He looked at her curiously. "Mrs. Picard; I don't break the rules."

"I know that you can't violate your programming, Andy. It's just that I guess I was hoping."

"Hoping for what?"

"A hint of rebelliousness."

He laughed. "Janus is the master there, Ma'am. I'm governed by the old hard drive up here." He tapped his temple as he said it.

"You haven't used a hard drive for aeons, Andy," Picard admonished him.

"That's true, but it doesn't sound as good saying, 'I'm governed by the ol' logic diamonds.'"

They crossed much of the city, eventually coming to an area that was slightly less run down than the spaceport. Andy knocked on a door, and when it opened, Picard and Beverly were shocked.

"Janet!" Beverly exclaimed.

They were ushered into the home where another shock awaited them. Not only was Doctor Trent Rockwell, Janet's husband, there, but Daniel Jackson as well.

Picard and Beverly sat down at the kitchen table and Daniel filled them in on what had happened to the Federation after they left.

"Right after your disappearance, your older self and your great grandfather tried to flash to Deep Space Nine, to confer about it with Sisko. They disappeared, but never made it to the station."

"There was no trace?" Beverly asked.

"Not initially," Rockwell told them.

"We weren't terribly concerned that Q were being slaughtered," Janet supplied, "because you had disappeared before your later selves."

"I decided to consult with Oberoth after another seven Q disappeared," Daniel explained.

"I doubt Oberoth would have the power to harm us," Picard observed.

"Be that as it may, I wanted to find out."

"And?" Beverly asked.

"He said, 'Really, Doctor Jackson. As much as I'd like to take credit for the destruction of several Q, I'm afraid I'll have to disavow any knowledge. I find it amusing, though.'"

"That's about what I would expect from him," Beverly said.

"As would I," her husband agreed.

Daniel nodded. "It was easy enough to determine that he was, in fact, telling the truth, but we had no way of discovering what was actually happening."

Picard and Beverly both looked at Andy.

"I admit," he said, "that it was me, but you see, I had to get certain people here. The rest, I had to just get out of that time period."

"Why?" Picard demanded. "That time period is our home."

"It's yours and Beverly's, yes. One could even make a case that it's Meribor's and Batai's, but it's not Jackson's or Rockwell's."

"And this is?" Rockwell asked, shaking his head.

"Of course not, but you have something to do here."

"Is that all we are to you, Andy?" Daniel asked him. "People to fulfill our place in history?"

"No, Doctor Jackson. You all are my friends, but my programming means that I have to see to it that history is fulfilled. I can't shirk that responsibility."

"Certainly, you can't," Picard agreed. "Can you tell me what we are to do here?"

"'Fraid not, Jean Luc." Picard gave the android a strange look. He was on a first name basis with very few people, and Andy Lawson was not one of them.

"Well," Daniel said, "because of Andy's actions, the Federation was facing distrust amongst its own people. It wasn't only Q that went missing when they travelled, people would use the stargate and gateways and as often as not, they wouldn't remolecularize."

Picard nodded. "I can well imagine." He turned to Andy. "Where did you send those that didn't come here?"

Tatooine...

Shmi Skywalker was working. Of course, she was always working; it seemed to be her lot in life. She was a slave, and had recently been bought by a creature called a Toydarian. He was a small being who seemed to be a cross between a miniature pachyderm and irritable bat. His name was Watto.

Shmi was cleaning inside Watto's shop. She had been left to tend the shop while her owner went to the podraces. She was on a ladder, dusting a high shelf, a chore that never ended on Tatooine, when a Corellian couple entered.

She turned so she could see them, and asked, "Can I help you?" She climbed down the ladder and cleaned her hands on her skirt.

"I'm Jack, and this is my wife, Samantha."

"I assumed you were Corellian. Those don't sound like Corellian names," Shmi told him. "Do you have a surname?"

"Just Jack," he replied.

"Jak Solo? Interesting name." She turned to Sam and said, "Sam Antha? I'm Shmi Skywalker. Pleased to meet you."

He decided not to correct her, but go with it. "We're looking for some parts, and we're wondering if you can help."

"I'll help them," a gravelly voice said from behind Jack. "You get back to work."

Watto had come back after losing badly, and he was in a foul mood.

"Our gravity generator is on the fritz, and we'd like a new one. It makes it tough to pilot a ship, floating around."

Watto sneered. "Gravity generators are expensive. You don't have enough money for the parts."

"Really?" Jack was shocked that the Toydarian would make such an assumption. "Look, Gonzo, I've got more money than you've ever seen, but if you don't want any, that's fine by me. I'll just look for another dealer. A reputable one."

Now, Watto's sneer turned into a loud, raucous laugh. "I can charge what I want. I'm the only dealer in Mos Espa. You have lots of money, huh? Good. It will cost you lots."

Jack knew that was false, Watto was a parts dealer among many, who needed business to survive. He wasn't going to direct customers to a competitor. "It won't cost us much," Jack said, projecting his thoughts at the Toydarian.

Again, the raucous laugh. "Mind tricks don't work on me, Corellian." He laughed more. "For your try, I'm going to raise the price. Instead of twenty thousand, I'm going to charge you two thousand."

Sam looked at Jack, an amused expression on her face. "Jack won't try that again, will you Jack?"

O'Neill shook his head, returning the amused look. Then, he projected again, and Watto flew over and bobbed up and down in front of him like a demented buzzard. "I'll teach you to try and trick a Toydarian. "One thousand credits for the generator."

"But…" Jack began.

"You think I'm unfair?" Watto shrieked. "I'll raise the price again! Five hundred! Don't make me raise it further." He said that last mere centimeters from Jack's face, with an evil grin on his face.

"We won't argue anymore," Sam said, making a show of restraining her husband. To Jack, she thought, "Knock it off, Jack. We don't need to break him. He really does look like Gonzo, doesn't he?" She had to concentrate to keep from giggling out loud.

"Five hundred is a fair price, even on this godforsaken dirt clod," he thought back. Aloud, "Fine. Five hundred. Just please don't raise it again."

Watto laughed. "I'll keep it where it is. I don't want to take all of your money." The last was a lie, but he realized that it wasn't feasible to take all of someone's money unless you were a thief.

Jack picked up the part, after he paid for it, and the two left the shop. Once out on the street, Jack turned to Sam, disgustedly. "Fifty years here, and still no closer to figuring out what is going on than we were before, but at least we can let Riker know we found her."

They ducked down a deserted alley, and he waved his hand. A moment later, they were in another deserted alley, but on a different planet.

Here, it was nighttime, and they entered a back door. Jack was starting into a good tirade. "How is it that a galactic screw up like Fargo can build a stargate that can keep even the Q under his thumb? Go to Tatooine, Andy says. Go to Watto's shop, and you'll discover something that will explain everything." He was really warming up now. "Discover what? All I discovered is that Gonzo, the Muppet, is a Toydarian!"

He was about to start in on the character of Fargo, when he heard a familiar voice from behind him. "Really? I've always wondered what Gonzo was."

Sam looked around her husband and saw, of all people, Beverly. "Grandma!"

Jack, too, turned around. He saw that not only was Beverly in the small kitchen, but so was Picard.

Sometime later, on Tatooine...

In Mos Espa, a small, strangely shaped shuttle was landing. It was several meters long, and looked as if it was meant to link with others of its kind, front to back.

The bearded man who stepped out of the rear hatch was tall. He was wearing robes reminiscent of those worn by the Jedi. Several Jawas scurried at him as he strode towards the entrance to the launch bay. He gave them a stern word, and they turned, hurrying away as fast as they had come.

He maintained a fast pace through the city, finally arriving at Watto's junk shop. He stepped in and stood gazing at the extremely familiar woman. She continued cleaning the all pervasive dust off of the diverse junk in the shop, as if she hadn't seen him.

"Deanna!" the man exclaimed.

Shmi turned and looked at him with a strange expression on her face. He was familiar, yet… suddenly she remembered. "Will!" She dropped the rag she was using, and ran to him.

"What are you doing?" The shout was in a gravelly voice, and seemed totally out of place for the creature it came from. He started buzzing toward the embracing couple like a mad hornet. Will thrust a hand out at the creature, his palm open and facing outward. There was no visible energy transference, but the Toydarian was thrown back against a wall. Multiple items on a high shelf fell, one of them striking him and knocking him to the floor. Watto screeched as he was pinned beneath an environmental filter unit.

"Who is that?" Will asked.

"That is Watto, our master." The speaker was a child perhaps eight or nine years of age. He had sandy blonde hair, and was wearing the sand colored clothing common on Tatooine. He hurried to his master's side, but found that the Toydarian was no longer alive.

The Continuum courtroom...

"That's not how things happened," Anakin Skywalker said to his son, who was seated beside him in the courtroom.

Merlin heard him, and explained. "Ben is certain that circumstances would have been different had things been done his way. We are showing him exactly how they would have been different."

"Watto's death really is not such a great loss," Anakin said, shrugging his shoulders.

"This is only the beginning," Thor said, gravely.

"Why do I remember these events if they're just a demonstration for Ben's benefit?" Deanna Riker asked from beside Will.

"These events have now happened in the past," The First explained.

"You are changing the past?" Bra'tac was shocked. "How can you do that?"

"We are all changing what has been, Master Bra'tac," Teal'c told him.

All eyes went back to the scene playing out in the past.

Tatooine - the past...

William Riker flashed the three to the interior of his jumper, and they quickly launched. Before they had gone far, however, a small contingent of security ships followed. Watto's body had been found and the alarm raised. Riker quickly cloaked the jumper, leaving the security force wondering how such a small ship could have a cloaking device.

Anakin watched in wonder as a door opened in empty space directly in front of the jumper. Beyond the door, he could see a hangar bay. Obviously, there was a ship in front of them, but the only visible sign was the now open door. The boy watched a screen that showed the scene behind them as the door shut, then the universe seemed to leap around them.

"We just entered hyperspace," the man, Will, said as he powered down the jumper. Then he turned his chair to face them.

"Where are we going?"

"To a place where you'll be safe, and where slavery doesn't exist."

"Why'd you have to kill Watto? He wasn't so bad."

Shmi… Deanna, smiled thinly. "Ani... You have to understand. Slavery is wrong. Will doesn't want us to live that way. Watto wasn't going to free us."

The boy nodded, thoughtful. Then he asked Riker, "Are you a Jedi?"

Will shook his head. "No. I'm your father."

"My father?"

Again, Deanna explained. "You were born far in the future. There was a horrible being who hated my mother, and he kidnapped us. He brought us here and erased my memory of who and what we were, then he sold us into slavery." She gave a quizzical look to Will and said, "How do I know that?"

He didn't answer immediately, and Anakin asked his mother, "If this person erased your memory, how do you know who we are now?"

She looked at Riker, questioning.

He took her hand. "I am what is known as, in our time, a Q. I was able to release the memories your mother possessed that were hidden deep in her mind." He saw that she was still confused and went on. "Many things happened after you were removed from our time." He shifted in his seat to a more comfortable position and stretched out his legs.

"The creature who kidnapped you is called a Goa'uld."

"What's a Goold?" Anakin asked.

"The Goa'uld are related to the Trill. They are a symbiote living within a humanoid body. The Trill merges its mind with its host but a Goa'uld does not. They take over, completely suppressing the other mind."

"Anubis, this Goa'uld, has become a part of this time. While he now exists only as energy, he has still demonstrated the ability to possess people, and centuries ago, he started the order of the Sith. He controls the master while the apprentice is trained, and when the apprentice is strong enough, he jumps from one to the next, usually killing the master in the process."

"So the Sith master is just a Goa'uld host?" Deanna asked, feeling like she was beginning to understand.

"Yes, but there are some differences. The being known as Anubis is toxic to most carbon based lifeforms. We think he gets around the problem by only using someone with a high level of midi-chlorians in their bloodstream."

"What are midi-chlorians?" Anakin asked.

Riker stood and beckoned to the two. "Let's go to my quarters," he urged.

On the way, Anakin's curiosity took over. "What kind of a ship is this?"

"It's called an Aurora."

"Is that the name of the ship or the class?" Deanna asked.

"It's the class. The name of this ship is Hippaforalkus."

At the name of the ship, Deanna smiled. "Do you command this ship, Will?"

"Yes, I do. The time since you were abducted has been considerably longer for me than for you. I had this ship commissioned and built during that time."

"And how long have you commanded it?"

He sighed. "Twelve years."

She shook her head at the strangeness of it, then the writing on a control panel caught her eye.

"Will," she said, "this is not a Federation ship."

He nodded. "You're right. It's Alteran. The Alterans are beings who are a previous incarnation of our humanoid form." He paused, then said, "Or so we originally thought."

"Then how did you build an Alteran ship?" He didn't answer as they entered a stateroom and sat down.

He looked distinctly uncomfortable, then changed the subject. "The Q have decided to no longer sit idly by as people are hurt. We are taking an active role."

Deanna stared at him, wide eyed. "Will, that is wrong! There are reasons why the Federation has the prime directive."

"I know. The fact is, we're tired of watching our friends die. Part of the problem with being Q, I suppose."

"Will, you know as well as I do that we can't change the way things happen."

Will was adamant. "We do that every day, just by living."

"We did that when we were part of the timeline, but we're not from this time. Everything we do will change the timeline."

Riker shook his head. "I refuse to believe that I have powers but can't use them, even for good."

Deanna sighed. She had been thrilled when Will showed up to rescue her, but now was wondering if it was the right thing. She wondered how long Shmi Skywalker would have lived in slavery had the Q not intervened.