A/N – New story for which an idea was growing inside of my mind for some time, finally it developed into this. You can expect a lot of battles, discoveries and schemes on galactic scale. Actions start two and half of a year after the end of Atlantis and half a year after the end of Universe.
o-0-o
The battle of the superhive and the Destiny Expedition changed the way the humans of Earth looked to the stars, or at least its leaders' viewpoint. It forced them to finally realize how big of a danger living amongst the stars could be, but also how big of an opportunity exploration of space was. While disclosure of the programme or any data about it was a dream, even for the most liberal of them, it changed the amount of funding the programme received.
Where previously the programme was forced to scrounge for even the smallest amount of money to buy something as simple as rifles for its military personnel, now they had a steady influx of experienced soldiers and funds to cover their demands.
o-0-o
The USS Daedalus soundlessly sliced through the void of space, her powerful sublight drives pushing her faster and faster with each moment as her advanced sensors swept space in front and behind it looking for anything out of place. There shouldn't be anything dangerous lurking in the space around them, but then the Ancients were known for being extremely careful when it came to protecting their possessions.
"We are close," the helmsman said, interrupting the silence on the bridge. "According to the data that Doctor Jackson sent to us, it should be somewhere around here."
Colonel Steven Caldwell stood up and walked to the front of the bridge, he was one of the first officers approached by the Stargate programme. His gaze swept over the empty space that was quickly becoming filled with the massive form of Saturn surrounded by its majestic rings and several of its moons.
One of few things where nobody would look for anything precious being hidden, he thought as his cold eyes looked at them, but then Atlantis and the outpost were in similar places, so maybe they are right about something big being here.
"Focus on the moons," he said, walking back to his command chair. "Bring online the ZPM and use it to strengthen our sensors."
"Sir?" Lieutenant Colonel Marks asked.
"They were known for hiding things really well." He sat down in his chair and looked at the massive and beautiful form of Saturn to their right. "If they hid it here, they most likely covered their tracks. This is the kind of place where I would hide things if needed."
He could see the crew on the bridge nod and he focused his gaze on a display showing sensor readings. At the moment they were bare excluding positions and shapes of the planets and their relative position to Daedalus. Seconds passed in silence as their sensors penetrated the thick atmosphere of Titan and the surface of every single moon. Looking for a single thing out of place and flagging even the slightest amounts of radiation that was not of a natural origin.
There was a loud chime and his eyes momentarily darted to a blinking spot on the display, it was somewhere on the surface of Titan and quickly growing as the number of emissions was rising. Soon they covered the whole surface of the moon.
"There are hundreds of emissions," Marks said. "Some of them are as large as a couple of ZPMs, while some are completely off the scale and we have never seen something of this scale in the past. It seems to be a large complex of corridors and chambers cut beneath the surface, with some parts of it on the surface."
"Send a beacon into it and get Colonel Carter with the Hammond, SG-1 and SGA-1 here, they are the best bet on getting inside," Caldwell said as he looked at the display. No wonder nobody spotted it, this atmosphere is so thick and hostile that we didn't even look for something hidden beneath it, he thought and reclined in his chair.
"Beacon away and active," reported one of officers as a flash of white dematerialized a small black box from one of many storage areas on Daedalus and sent it into the unknown complex. It was a simple subspace beacon with several hours worth of power encased in a trinium-titanium case.
"Signal to the Hammond sent," another officer reported. "She should be here in half an hour and the teams will be aboard."
Caldwell acknowledged those reports and watched the display as his mind jumped to the events that happened over the last thirty months. The battle with the superhive was an event that changed the fate of Earth, before it governments were stingy when it came to funding. Now they were swimming in money and over eight BC-304 Block 32 were under construction. Also older ships were slated for major updates, it was a question of only when. He felt jealous of officers chosen as commanders of the new ships that were under construction, they were much more powerful than his own ship.
It was not a new design, it was a refinement of the BC-304 design with the addition of knowledge and technology gained from the Asgard core. They were the same sleek design as the very first ships were, but they were much more dangerous and should be able to effectively keep away anybody wishing harm to their planet.
o-0-o
"How did we miss this place?" Daniel Jackson asked as he stood on the bridge of the Hammond and watched as the moons of Saturn grew in size.
"Because of the fact that we didn't look here and because of where it is," Samantha Carter said. "Titan, its atmosphere is pretty good at disrupting signals and until now we didn't have enough ships in the Milky Way to check every single planet of our solar system for such surprises."
"So there might be something more?"
She was silent for a moment, but then nodded. "Highly unlikely, but yes, there could be something more, but I don't think it will be this big."
"Why?"
"Because you do not put all of your eggs into one basket," Sheppard said while entering the bridge. "To me this looks like a fleet base and a giant shipyard, so it isn't likely that they would put something more into this system."
"If sensor readings sent by the Daedalus are right it is a huge complex and only the outer shell of the moon is solid rock and ice, beyond it is open space."
"The biggest drydock ever built?"
"Might be," she said as the Hammond started to slow down and entered a low level orbit above the surface of Titan, barely outside of its atmosphere. "Puddle jumper is waiting for you in the hangar, I don't want to get closer as we might activate some sort of defense systems, but the Puddle jumper should be fine."
o-0-o
The puddle jumper crossed the border between the vacuum of space and the atmosphere without a single issue, its drives kept pushing it forward and deeper into thick acidic clouds of methane that made up one of the bigger parts of the atmosphere of Titan, providing perfect protection from curious eyes. The surface of the moon looked like Hell come to life: there were rivers and lakes of methane freely flowing and reshaping the landscape however it wished. The atmosphere that was there was certainly not breathable as according to sensor readings it was lacking oxygen and the most dominant element was nitrogen.
Even if the atmosphere was lethal to any human being that would dare to walk the surface without any protection, it was a perfect place to hide dangerous, even lethal, thing as not many would look here. It was a world extremely dangerous to anything that many civilizations possessed and loss of a couple of probes was enough to discourage most explorers.
Inside the Puddle Jumper there were five people: Colonel Sheppard, Colonel Mitchell, Rodney McKay, Teal'c and Daniel Jackson. The excitement was almost palpable as the small and nimble craft sliced the thick atmosphere, each second bringing it closer and closer to the surface and one of the structures that were there according to what Daedalus' sensor scans showed.
The silence was suddenly interrupted by Colonel Sheppard. "Guys, I'm not the one piloting the jumper, it's flying on its own! We're going to crash into the surface!"
"Or not," Daniel said 'causing the others to look out the front of the jumper. It was flying straight towards a straight wall cut out of stone and was not slowing down. "This is an artificial wall, no rock would be so smooth."
"What do you mean?" Rodney asked.
"That this here is some sort of an entrance into the complex that the Deadalus found."
"We'll see," Sheppard said as the Jumper slowed down and the stone wall in front of them moved away, revealing a large black corridor that led inside. It was big enough to comfortably let through a jumper, but nothing bigger.
He released the controls and watched as the craft flew on its own through the entry and into a corridor behind them. Lights above and below lit up on their own as the jumper continued deeper and deeper into the mountain. They flew for more than five minutes before the jumperlanded on a large circular platform. When they landed the back ramp lowered on its own, revealing to them a large platform with consoles and displays placed along all but two of its walls. One through which they entered, and second with a large window.
As they walked out of their craft and onto the platform they could see a cavernous space cut out of the stone. From their point they couldn't see the bottom of it as it was covered by darkness and looking around they could see tiers upon tiers of open platforms rise from the bottom. On some of them they could see unfinished hulls of various ships, while on some were only piles of plates and other things required to build a working warship.
"That's the biggest shipyard I've ever seen," Mitchell finally said as they walked to the edge of the platform.
"The whole moon is a shipyard, it is empty inside and this is one of the main assembly areas," Daniel said from the console he had found. "It's the place where Atlantis and most of their ships were constructed."
"It's incredible," Rodney added. "We need to get more people to fully check it, but it's a huge place."
"How huge?" Sheppard asked
"This whole celestial body was emptied of its core and the outer shell is a couple of miles thick at best and the rest of it are artificially constructed structures," Rodney said and for a moment was silent. "There are also some defense systems, they are tracking both of our ships."
"Can you deactivate them?"
"Done, they are inactive and won't shoot us."
"You know that this discovery just changed the way we can look at the universe?" Daniel asked. "Previously we had no ships and almost no capability to produce them, with this we should be able to produce whatever we will need."
"Which also means that IOA will show a lot of interest in it," Sheppard said and tapped his earpiece. "Carter, can you beam to us? We have found an early Christmas gift."
Moments later in the room appeared a beam of light and when it disappeared in its place stood Colonel Carter. "Nice shipyard," she said, looking around. "It will take us ages to get it fully discovered."
"About that, there is something that can help," McKay said as he entered some things into one of the consoles. The display flickered for a second, but when it once again focused there were several schematics of the station on the screen. "We are here," McKay indicated a small cluster of dots at the top of it. "The rest," he said, "is the station."
"I will need to return to the Hammond and notify the SGC about what we have found here," Carter said. "We will need a couple of teams to begin explorating it. The Daedalus will stay here on guard and will help you. Focus on getting power up and the main slips located as those are the type things we will need."
"What about defense systems?" Sheppard asked.
"Those too," she said after a moment of consideration. "While the Lucian Alliance is far from here, they might attempt to make a move against us." She tapped her earpiece. "Beam me to the bridge."
A beam of silver light whisked her away and left them to the hard task of securing the station until reinforcements could arrive. They were completely unaware of how big the impact was going to be because of this simple discovery. An unexpected, but badly needed and desired find by many people; one that could be just enough to tip the scales in the favor of Earth and its allies that never seemed to have enough ships to meet their demands.
o-0-o
The discovery of the station hidden under the surface of Titan didn't pass as unnoticed as the Tau'ri hoped for: hidden in the Solar system was a small drone that sent a short, coded burst of subspace signals into the Andromeda Galaxy, it was marked with the highest possible priority. At the same time the systems of the station sent a signal to a number of places scattered all over the local group. To whom were they sending, and what was their meaning? Those were the things that the Tau'ri would need to find an answer to, as soon as possible.