Colonel Reynolds stared out of the main view port of the Sentinel, the ship under his command. Arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, he thought about why he was out here. In the farthest reaches of his world. In the Pegasus galaxy.

He was under orders from General Landry, head of Stargate Command, to scout out known Wraith hive locations to determine the threat to Earth and its allies back in the Milky Way galaxy.

His ship, the Sentinel, was a 304 class Battle Cruiser. Sister ship to all the other 304's. One of which was recently finished, called the Pandora. The Pandora was back home in the Milky Way doing hit and run missions against Lucian Alliance cargo ships.

The Colonels mind wandered toward the mission reports he had read on the Wraith. Of how they had terrorized the people of the Pegasus galaxy for thousands of years. Of how they never died of old age. Of how they had ships the size of large cites. And of course, of how they fed by literally sucking the life out of you through your chest.

Reynolds shivered. The feeding process was excruciatingly painful; he had known people who were killed by the Wraith. It was just evil, how the Wraith had terrorized civilizations in Pegasus for that long. Any world that tried to fight was exterminated like a pesky group of insects.

The Lieutenant overlooking the navigations console said something and jerked him out of his thoughts.

"Sir? We're about to reach our destination."

"Ok, drop us out."

The view in the window went from the blurry blue haze of hyperspace back into the black curtain of normal space.

"According to our Intel, the Wraith hives should be gathering around the far side of that planet." He pointed to the large red sphere to the right of their view. "M1M-837. Bring us around and stop just outside of sensor range, then I want the two Jumpers to get out there and do some scouting on those Hive ships."

Six minutes later the Sentinel was in position and the small Jumper fighters were being launched out of the fighter bays. He watched the tube-like ships fly away before they disappeared with their renowned cloak mode. The Colonel knew it would take at least 15 minutes before the tiny cloaked fighters were in position and ready to relay information back to them, so he decided to sit in his command chair for now.

The bridge was silent for the entire time. 13 minutes later the voice of the pilot in Jumper 1 sounded in his earpiece.

"Bad news, sir."

"I thought I told you to maintain radio silence?"

"Sir, I know, but the Intel was a bust. We've scanned for Hive ships but there's nothing out here."

"Scan again."

"We did."

The Colonel closed his eyes and shook his head in annoyance. They had flown to Pegasus from Milky Way as fast as they could, pushing engines at 120% so they could find the Wraith days before they even left the area. The entire trip took 2 weeks. Now they had to turn around and head back with empty pockets.

"Tell Jumpers 1 and 2 to head back, we're going home."

"Sir? They could show up late."

"The Wraith were supposed to be here in the first place. We're not waiting around for something that won't show up."

Just then short range sensors console emitted an alarm. Out the main view port the Colonel watched as a hyper space window opened right above their heads. Out of it emerged a wraith Hive ship.

"A Hive ship just arrived. They're powering weapons!"

"All batteries open fire. Evasive maneuvers until we can pick up those jumpers."

He watched as yellow rail gun rounds streaked toward their target. The missiles soon followed.

"They're launching Darts!"

The fighters, called "Darts" because of their pointed look, fired on the Sentinel as they left the Hive's fighter bays. The Dart fire combined with bombardment from the Hive pounded hard on their shields.

"Shields down to 60%!"

"We can't pick up the jumpers. Tell them to head down to the Stargate on the planet, and get clear of that hive ship. Arm our nuclear warhead, let's hope they haven't jammed us yet."

The Hive ship and Darts continued to pound on the Sentinel.

"Shields at 20%!"

The Colonel glared out at the Hive ship.

"Shields are depleted!"

Reynolds chair shook as his ships armor plating started taking the hits.

"Warhead is armed. Detonation set 1 second after departure."

"Beam it."

"The radiation will hit us."

"We can't outrun the Hive, and there's too many Darts to risk a jump out of here, this is our last chance. Beam it."

The main view port filled up with a bright blue light. Colonel Reynolds looked away before it blinded him.

Once the light cleared, he looked at where the Hive used to be. Nothing remained.

The radiation hit them a few seconds after the blast. Almost all primary systems and most secondary systems on the ship started to shut down. Weapons control, engines, even sub-space communications all went down. They were dead in the water.

"Damage report."

"Shields are down completely. Two of the lower decks are venting atmosphere, and severe damage to the hull on the nose of the ship. All weapons are down except for rail guns. We can't use the beaming technology either."

"Seal off all damaged sections. I want our engines back up so we can get out of here. What about the radiation?"

"At this distance it's not lethal, we should be fine."

"Sir! Four more Wraith ships just jumped in. Two cruisers and two Hives."

"God damn it. Open fire and scramble the F-302's!"

Remaining rail guns opened up on the Hive ships as the F-302's left the Sentinel. Reynolds knew they wouldn't be coming back.

"Get those fucking engines going now!" the Colonel ordered.

"The engineers say they can't get them working in time!"

The Hives targeted their rail guns, but left the integrity of the ship itself alone.

"Sir! We're being boarded!"

The Hives ceased fire on the Sentinel, boarding parties of Wraith marched into the BC-304 via the fighter bays.

"Orders sir?"

"Get to the nearest armory and arm yourselves."

Just then the Colonel realized that the Wraith had planned this all along. They had purposely sacrificed one of their ships to bring down their shields and used the radiation from the nuke to fry the Sentinels systems. He had to give them credit, they were ambitious little bastards.

He started to hear the stunner blasts from Wraith weapons down the stairwell next to him.

Without the beaming technology working they couldn't escape to the nearby planet. Help wasn't coming and the Wraith outnumbered them 50 to 1. They grabbed some weapons and cover. The Colonel and his crew waited for their last stand against the Wraith.