I own nothing but i wish i did.

Its true the chapters are getting shorter. Most future chapters will be between 1 to 2k in words, some above, none below.


Earth-SGC

Samantha Carter entered General Landry's office recently returned from another mission off world.

"Sir, you asked to see me"

"At ease Colonel, I thought you'd want to know that we recently hit an active trust safe house and got a list of their recent pay offs. We should be able to learn a lot about their current set up using this information."

"That sounds like good news sir, anything interesting among the information."

"Actually I have some people trying to find out just that now, and since I can see Walter coming down the corridor now we might have something."

Walter paused at the door, "Sir we just had a hit on one of the bank accounts. It belongs to one of the minor technicians working for the SGC's science teams; he had access to the Virtual Chair project."

Both officers were shocked from the revelation that they had been infiltrated. General Landry was the first to react barking out orders. "Have the technician arrested immediately and take him to a holding cell."

"SF's are already on their way sir. But sir that's not the only problem, the chairs the tech had access to were shipped out several weeks ago to Atlantis."

"So the chairs could have been sabotaged and Atlantis could be the target."

It was Carter's turn to add something. "It's more than likely sir, I've been monitoring the project and all recent checks on the chairs we have here have come back clean.

"Have a message sent to Apollo tell them to get Daedalus to pass on a message the ships should have the range if they pass it on."

Walter dashed towards the stairs to the control room recognising the urgency of the situation.


Virtual Reality

Rodney's face was a picture of disbelief. "I just don't buy it. You cannot be the real Todd."

The Wraiths grin remained in place. "How right you are Doctor McKay. I am not the real Todd. I am merely controlling an avatar based on his likeness."

John's patience was wearing thin. "Will you get to the point already, who the hell are you?" The image of this particular wraith standing before him was clearly not helping matters.

"I don't think he's a who, I think it's a what. In other words this thing is a computer virus."

Todd cut in at this point with a slightly maniacal gleam in his eye. "Oh not just any computer virus, the ultimate computer virus. I am the god of all viruses."

"Rodney, did he just say god?"

"He did indeed, face it he's a Goa'uld virus, created and programmed by. Guess the megalomania is contagious."

The Wraith's smile was definitely starting to wane after being subjected to Rodney's criticism. Some things will never change, thought John, guess it's time to play the good cop.

"Okay Rodney, take it easy on the poor computer virus. What say we give it a chance to tell us just what it's planning."

The Wraith sneered, "Why Colonel isn't it obvious. My goal is the destruction of Atlantis and despite Doctor McKay's interference you two are going to help me do it."

"Rodney would never help you destroy Atlantis, and neither will I. There is nothing you can do."

"Sheppard's right, the virtual reality environment is completely isolated from Atlantis's main systems so you have no way to infect the city."

Not even this statement could dampen the Wraiths grin and seeing Todd smile this much was beginning to freak both of them out. "You are right, this environment and all the scenarios have been isolated. But you have also been isolated from the exit subroutines, thanks to my brilliance. The moment either of you try to leave it will form a connection to the main systems and I can use that link to transfer myself. You may escape but it's a small price to pay for my freedom."

Rodney could see the flaw in his plan and was quick to jump on it. "But we don't have to leave. It won't take Radek long to purge you out of the code. In a few hours we will be out of here and you will be nothing but a unorganized group of one's and zero's."

"Oh and what makes you think you have a few hours? You forget there is a scenario for you to deal with and it begins now. It's game time boys. Have fun."

With that the Wraith vanished, leaving two very puzzled people behind.

Scenario starting.

"Ok Rodney what are we going to do now?"

Rodney was typing away at a console. "Well, since I am apparently locked out of the system from here the only thing we can do is play this scenario out. At least it will keep us occupied and we might figure out what his plan is for getting loose."

"Okay then let's see what the situation is." John jumped into the helm control chair, while Rodney took the tactical position. "Well this isn't good, you better check out the radar screen because we have company."

Dead ahead of them were two Wraith hive ships, they were charging towards them and moving in to take flanking positions.

"It gets worse Sheppard. We have no nukes, the Asgard beams are offline, oh and the railguns are out of ammo. But we do have all our missile bays loaded and ready to fire, as soon as they are armed anyway."

"Any good news for me? Can we at least get out of here?"

"Well we can go forwards, just don't plan on setting any records. Other than that the manoeuvring thrusters are all out and so is the hyperdrive, so we can run but we won't get very far."

"Tell me we have shields." John was almost pleading at this point. Maybe there was a silver lining to be found somewhere.

"Raised and fully powered," said Rodney, with a small amount of pride entering his voice.

"Good because those hives are here."

The hives had by now reached weapons range and immediately started firing dozens of giant blue balls of energy. As each ball impacted the shields power conduits overloaded and consoles started to flicker. The shields held under the unyielding barrage but the overall strength continued to drop. Each hit drained the shields of more and more energy and under this much stress they wouldn't last long.

"Rodney, arm the missiles and fire at both. Let's see if we can knock out their weapons. I'm going to try and get us out of their field of fire."

"Missiles armed, launching now."

The missiles burst out of their bays and soared towards the wraith hive ships. Most were hit by the Wraith weapons fire and saved the Daedalus' shields from another hit, unfortunately there were many more on the way. The missiles that didn't get shot down impacted, five in all, hit the wraith hives head on. The missiles exploded in small fireballs as they impacted the hives forward hull, causing only minimal damage. It was doubtful that the Wraith even felt the impact from the hits. The Daedalus meanwhile limped towards the two hives. Her course set her right between the two hives. Admittedly this limited the field of fire somewhat as the hives forward guns were out of arc as the Daedalus moved closer and closer. But as the hives and battlecruiser charged towards each other the hives got into a position to broadside, and broadside they did. The Deadalus shields were beginning to suffer under the onslaught, but as the Daedalus charged forward some shots missed their target and hit the hive opposite.

"Sheppard I hope you're getting everything you can out of those engines, or we are going to be space dust soon. The shields are about to fail," Rodney yelled over the sounds of explosions.

Sheppard yelled back just as loud, "She's giving us everything she has, we're maxed out!"

"Shields are failing, we're taking heavy damage. The hulls collapsing! Blast doors are being breached! The power core is going critical!"

The shields collapsed and that meant bolt after bolt of energy was now impacting the hull. Each hit rocked the ship and caused heavy damage. The naquadah/trinium alloy that made up the hull plating was torn inwards under the blasts from each bolt. As the hull was breached emergency blast doors lowered and locked into place, but even they were eventually breached by the sustained Wraith weapons fire. As power conduits all over the ship were severed the excess energy fed back to the ships power core and it went critical. The ship exploded in a massive fireball that reached out and scorched the sides of both hive ships.


Here be cliffhangers. Please Review.