Ikaros sat down inside the Avenger's control chair, the upgrades and repairs were done, he had to make an errand before he deactivated the facilities systems. The Avenger seemed to sing to him with joy as its systems were at full operational status for the first time in months. The course was laid in as the Avenger headed out to hyperspace.

Rodney typed furiously at the ancient display, even Laura couldn't pull him out of the zone now, even if she wanted to. According to the data from every console in the outpost the entire operating system for the device had been erased, Rodney rubbed his eyes.

"Okay, we know the Ancients used the Dakara device to recreate life in the Milky way after the plague," Laura looked up at him.

"Yes,"

Laura looked into his eyes as the cogs of Rodney's mind whirled.

"When they got here the used this device to create life in a similar manner," Rodney was starting to understand. "The device generates an energy wave that reduces things in its path to the constituent molecules, it's not powerful enough to disintegrate a planet, but it can wash away anything on its surface. I'm missing something, something important."

"Shields," Rodney looked sharply at Laura.

"What?"

"Well the shields we use on our ships and on Atlantis are an energy field right," Laura walked to stand in front of Rodney whose eyes were beginning to widen in realisation. "And elementary physics states that two equal and opposite waves cancel each other out"

"And the wraith would have all the data on Ancient shields they needed." Rodney's hands were fidgeting in excitement.

"So when the Ancients pulled out of the outpost they made sure it wouldn't work." Laura and Rodney both smiled at each other.

"So it's useless," the both jumped as Colonel Shepperd walked into the control area, his head was quirked to the side and he was smirking.

"No, not necessarily, we have the Atlantis database, and the data from the Dakara device, we should be able to recreate the operating sequence." Rodney didn't want to let go of the fact that this device was the only sliver of hope he'd had in weeks.

"What's your opinion Captain?" Shepperd was unconvinced; he knew that when Rodney fixated upon a single idea it was next to impossible to dissuade him.

"I agree with Rodney,"

Shepperd looked shocked at Laura's immediate response and the conviction behind it.

"Okay, I'll dial in to contact Sam,"

Once Shepperd had left Rodney turned to Laura sheer gratitude shone in his eyes.

"Thank you Laura," he smiled at her.

Laura smiled back. "Don't mention it, and I honestly hope that you're right,"

"Me too,"

They two went back to work at the computer stations.

Deep into the galactic void space ripped apart and the Avenger returned to normal space, the powerful sensors on its prow immediately found their target. Ikaros looked out of the force dome to see the wreck of the Tria.

There were scorch marks all along the ship and whole areas that literally had no hull left, the hyperspace engines weren't just destroyed, they were literally gone. Structural members throughout the ship had given and the rings were less useful than lumps of naquadah. Ikaros had only one option if he wanted to get this done.

He moved the Avenger to just under a single meter from the top of the Tria. Ikaros reached through the inertial dampeners and pushed them outwards, the generators groaned in protest and pushed back, however Ikaros wasn't going to give up. After a few minutes of the field going backwards and forwards Ikaros had expanded them to encompass the entire vessel, he then activated the Avenger's tractor beam, the Tria suddenly leapt up and connected to the Avenger. Ikaros then closed his eyes and focused on the hyperdrive, even the more advanced drive he'd recently installed was being overtaxed, after an even greater protest the Tria was fully encompassed by both inertial dampening and a subspace field. Together the two ships entered the hyperspace vortex, the Avenger taking them back to where they'd come from.

"Off world activation!" Walter called as General Landry ran down the stairs to stand behind him at the main console.

"What've we got Chief?" Landry looked over Walter's shoulder so he'd know anyway.

"Receiving an IDC now sir," Walter looked at the decryption spectrum. "It's SG-1 sir."

"Open the iris,"

They both watched as the titanium plates peeled back and the four man SG team came through, Teal'c and Cam first followed by Daniel and Vala, the former of which seemed to be doing his upmost to ignore the latter. Landry took the microphone in his hand.

"Dr Jackson please report to the briefing room immediately."

Daniel stopped and gazed up at Landry.

"Okay," Daniel a getaway before Vala started again as the others left to got to the infirmary for their routine check-up, he turned to give Teal'c a sympathetic look as he ran up to the briefing room.

Colonel Reynolds was waiting up there holding a folder in his arms.

"What's going on?" Daniel looked between the file and Reynolds as he passed the file to him.

"We found an Ancient structure on P9X-435, we've dated it to only 8,000 years old, the Ancients must have built it after they left Pegasus."

Daniel looked up as he realized the ramifications of the buildings discovery.

Ikaros walked away from the glass hanger bay where the Tria had been moored, the automated systems had already began to repair and upgrade the ship based on his specifications from the facilities database. Ikaros began to head out of the control room to head for the Avenger. Just the external repairs for the Tria would take six months let alone the modifications to the hyperdrive, shields and weapons he wanted to make.

Shortly afterwards the Avenger pulled up and sped into orbit before jumping into hyperspace, he already knew the next location to head to before he made his return known.

In orbit of a gas giant Biarmaland floated surrounded by three Aurora class warships. General Korceanat stood behind Myra, his head leant so far forward that he was practically resting on her shoulder.

"How much longer till the repairs are done?"

Myra sighed. "They'll be done when there done, for the last time you badgering the teams won't speed them up. It's a miracle we figured out a way to do this without landing the city as it is."

An alarm blazed from the other side of the deck.

"Detecting five wraith hive ships entering the system, they're firing."

The deck shook and flashed blue light.

"How many potentia have been plugged in?" Korceanat asked gripping the console as another salvo impacted.

"Only one," Myra was about to say more as the console behind her sparked and flashed.

"Tell our ships to leave now!" Korceanat was already moving to the control chair as the three escort Aurora's entered hyperspace.

Korceanat's eyes closed as he reclined into the interface, the cities stardrive flashed as Biarmaland moved as fast as he could away from the ships giving chase. The chair feed was interrupted as the room vibrated with another series of impacts.

"Potentia at 50%, engineers report that well need two hours to reinstall a second." She recoiled from her console as it exploded crystal fragments sprayed into Myra's face.

Upon seeing this Korceanat's face hardened, he'd had enough of this.

Biarmaland pulled up and spun so its towers faced the nearest hive ship and shot behind it in a manoeuvre that something so fragile should never have been able of completing intact.

On the nearest pier a hexagonal hatch opened and brilliant orange light began to shine through as thousands of drones shot out in a massive swarm like a serpent that streamed towards the hive, just under a kilometre from the hull they split into smaller streams and ripped into the hives hull, the Ancients had developed drones in order to counteract shields. When the wraith had built their ships they'd designed them to specifically counter the advantage drones provided, however in large numbers they were still effective.

It took a few seconds for the drones to break through, the glowing serpents then ripped through the hull superheating gas as the outer hull burnt up, the other four hives broke off the attack as Biarmaland entered hyperspace.

Major Marks sat at his console looking out at the armada of ships in orbit of Lantea, although it looked impressive the numerous traveller ships, while now armed with Asgard pulsed plasma weaponry their shields were only a few times more powerful that a Goa'uld ha'tak and their hulls were incredibly brittle due to centuries of use and now the IOA had managed to recall the Apollo leaving Atlantis defended by little more than hulks of metal.

"This is Colonel Ellis to Atlantis flight requesting permission to depart,"

Sam's voice came back through the radio.

"Colonel Ellis, permission granted, safe trip."

The Apollo pulled away from the formation of ships and jumped to hyperspace, Colonel Davidson turned in his chair to face Marks.

"Take the bridge; I'm going to see to the F-302 wing Ellis left behind." Davidson tiredly pulled himself from the command thrown and headed out to the hanger decks.

Marks got up from his seat and sat in the command thrown, he'd been here more often than not these days.

Sam had just got back to her office when Radek came running in, she sighed and got to her feet.

"What's happened?" Sam liked to feel she was ready for anything, but the truth was she wasn't.

"I have good news and bad news," Radek looked apologetic.

Sam grimaced.

"Bad first, I'll probably need cheering up."

"Okay," Rakek nodded. "The wraith Guide is demanding to be moved somewhere else, apparently Seeker tried to actually feed on him before the marines stopped him."

Sam rolled her eyes but nodded. "Alright, I'll have him moved to a set of guest quarters somewhere on one of the piers out of the way, he's been behaving himself. What's the good news?"

"The Illuminasta's main power core is operational to 50% and we'll have the cutting beams up in a few hours. Also despite their disagreements we've made some progress on locating the specific coding in the replicator base code to deactivate the attack command."

Sam felt herself smiling.

"Good work Radek,"

Radek nodded in response and returned to his duties, Sam then saw Teyla standing in the doorway.

"Teyla come in,"

Teyla walked into the room and carefully took a seat.

"I was wondering if anything had been heard about the Athosians recently,"

Sam shook her head sadly at the pregnant woman.

"I'm sorry Teyla," Sam bit her lip. "Look, the second I hear something I tell you,"

"Thank you Colonel," Teyla got back to her feet, Sam followed her.

"Call me Sam,"

Teyla nodded and thanked her.

"Look Teyla, if you ever want to talk to someone about anything, I'm available," Sam felt terrible for the woman, although in Teyla's culture it was quite clear that women continued to fight and work till late in their pregnancy on Earth and according to IOA policy pregnant women weren't allowed to go to the field.

"Thank you, Sam, I may take you up on that,"

Ronan walked through the darkened corridors in Atlantis till he reached Dr Keller's quarters; he moved his hand to signal the door chime, after a call from inside and some rustling the door panels moved apart and Jennifer stood there in a flowery sleeveless top and blue jeans.

"Ah, Ronan," she bit her lip and looked down at herself, critically examining her outfit.

"Don't worry, you look great," Ronan reached out his arm to the Doctor who was now blushing.

She nervously reached out and took it.

"Just so you know, I haven't been on a date in a few years,"

"Don't worry, I haven't either," he joked remembering his days as a runner.

Rodney rubbed his eyes; he'd been sitting at the consoles for hours.

"Laura, you got anything?"

Laura shook her head.

"Nope, nothing," she signed and turned to Rodney who was rubbing his neck, Laura smirked her eyes shining mischievously.

Rodney was trying to rub a cramp out of his neck when a pair of soft hands started to massage the back of his neck.

"That better Meredith?" Laura whispering in his ear, she smirked when Rodney bit back a moan.

Rodney barely held back a moan as her hot breath glistened his ear, the cramp in his neck long forgotten, even the use of his first name couldn't stop him enjoying this.

"You know," Laura shifted to his other ear. "We may not be able to use the device, but the power supply for it must be pretty big. I mean we never found out what powered the Dakara weapon, but based on what we observed of its effects might suggest a ZeePM."

Rodney nodded, his lips had gone dry and his heart was thumping, in the corner of his eye he could see Laura's smirk behind her red-gold hair.

"Yeah… well, we have the… erm life signs sensor that can… ah detect energy readings"

Rodney's eyes rolled shut, he felt proud that he'd been able to get that out from his mouth.

Laura nodded and pulled back from him stealthily removing the detector from Rodney's tac vest.

"Okay, I'm getting a reading from further in, you game Meredith?" Laura watched as McKay shakily nodded at opened his eyes to follow her deeper into the installation.

General Korceanat sat in his office going over damage reports from the battle; he'd sent the escort ships on to a planet that'd been prepared for a long time.

"General we have a problem," Myra was standing before him. Korceanat gestured at a seat.

She nodded and sat down.

"We've been going over the hyperspace engine reports and we've been getting anomalous data synchronization returns from the Potentia core and the generators themselves. We've used up twice as much energy so far than we should have."

Korceanat leaned forward in his chair.

"So what do you recommend?"

"We need to drop out and physically inspect all of the generator relays one by one for damage."

Korceanat winced; the time it would take to inspect all of the relays would leave them completely vulnerable.

"I want as many people to assist as possible, prepare for drop out."

The Avenger dropped out of hyperspace once more in orbit of a jungle planet, Ikaros ran a few scans of the planet to confirm the knowledge he'd gathered while ascended. Nothing but a few primitive human tribes evolutionary adjacent to Neanderthals, and there under a mountain chain was an outpost left behind by his people. He remembered when his mother had complained about the protocols when abandoning outposts when he was younger, the specific protocol that annoyed her was the restart protocol; when the Ancients abandoned outposts they left behind the Potentia like on Praclarush so that the installations could be brought back to life easily.

Ikaros couldn't ring down so he was forced to use the beam transporters, with a golden flash of light he appeared in the middle of the jungle and headed towards the ground entrance. As he walked however he heard a twig snap behind him, closing his eyes he reached out telepathically to find, nothing, no intelligence or sentience just animalistic fury, Ikaros ducked and rolled forward as the Neanderthal charged a club raised in his hand. Twisting around he saw the Neanderthal turning to face him, he raised the club and brought it down to hit Ikaros.

Ikaros raised his right arm to block the impact and twisted his fist to grab hold of the Neanderthal's arm and pulled him forward, as the Neanderthal stretched forward Ikaros reeled up and kicked him in the chest, as the Neanderthal fell to the ground Ikaros chopped his right hand down to strike at the centre of the Neanderthal's spinal column. Once the Neanderthal was unconscious Ikaros continued into the base. It didn't take long for him to locate the bases control chair, easing into it the chair roared to life reclining as crystal panels glowed aqua blue, he pulled a mental status report from the Potentia, below 2%. Ikaros still got out of the chair and removed the antediluvian power cell, even at 2% it was a fairly distant charge of energy.

Ikaros jogged out of the outpost cradling the Potentia like a new-born child, once he reached a safe distance from the naquadah filled cave Ikaros sent the signal to transport back to the Avenger.

Arriving on the ship Ikaros stored the Potentia alongside the others he'd already located, even collectively they only charged to 60% between the ten modules he'd recovered. He headed up to the bridge rubbing his eyes, as he entered the deck though he realised that something wasn't right, when he'd left the chair was facing the door, now it was facing the force dome. He moved his hand to the force lance ready to react to whatever threat the person in the chair posed, however when the chair turned to face him he was completely shocked.

It was a woman wearing a black skin tight Lantean nanite combat suit, of the type used by Lantean intelligence agents, at the centre of her uniform was a crystal personal shield emitter. But that wasn't what made him stop, no, that was her long brown hair, her familiar smile, cute nose and striking blue eyes.

"Mum?" Ikaros stood there blinking at her.

"Sorry son, I seem to be in your chair," she got up from the chair and stood before her son.

"I thought the … others wouldn't let you return?" Ikaros' mind had completely stopped working some time ago when he'd first seen her.

"Well not at the moment, your little trick with the Charybdis device gave you enough power to circumvent the will of the others near enough all together, the rest of us have to deal with the high council." Ikaros' mother said sadly. "The rest of us, like Orlin still have to deal with them, when he returned to corporeal form in order to hold the knowledge of what the Ori were doing he couldn't assume his Ancient body dooming him to a fate worse than death. But whatever happens I'll watch over you, the council can rot in hell if they try to stop me."

Ikaros chocked back a sob as his mother dissolved into a white mist that disappeared into the Aether.

Deep underground Laura and Rodney tracked down the energy trace to behind a thick black metal bulkhead.

"Anything?" Laura peered over Rodney's shoulder at the screen of the Ancient detector.

"No nothing yet, the encryption seems to be based on a series of Ancient knowledge puzzles rather than normal mathematical bases. It will take some time," Rodney typed on the touchscreen for a few seconds before smiling. "Got it,"

Rodney seemed incredibly smug as the door split into two panels that slid apart.

"Yeah, you opened a door Rodney; it's nothing to write home about,"

Rodney scowled at her as they walked through the door, both of their P-90s raised with the torches turned on. As they entered all of the lights came on followed by a bank of computer consoles, at the centre of the chamber were two metal cylinders that were two meters in diameter.

"I think we've found the power source," Laura and Rodney followed the cylinders up, they towered up more than twenty meters.

"Yup," Rodney nodded staring upwards.

In orbit of Lantea from the fires of the atmosphere the Illuminasta rose into orbit, Radek sat in the engine room going over the data from the main power core, he still wasn't sure about some of the patch jobs that'd been made.

"Colonel Shepperd, ease up on the left thruster, I'm reading a slight overload in the drive bus," Zelinka held his hand on the radio in his ear.

"I got it,"

The thruster slowed as the ship entered formation.

"Okay Shepperd, that's it."

The Illuminasta slowed as it entered formation beside the Odyssey and Daedalus.

Biarmaland spun on its axis as four wraith hives fired their weapons on a single area of shielding while the cruiser escorts fired on the stardrive panels.

Korceanat reconnected with the cities drone weapons as the control room bathed in sparks.

"General, you better hurry; the current potentia will be depleted before a new one can be installed." Myra shouted over the explosions.

Korceanat winced and nodded as all three drone launchers on the larger piers opened, orange light glowed from within, followed by three streams of hundreds of thousands of drones.

All three streams grouped together into a single massive serpent that lashed out at the closest hive ship, dozens were lost in seconds as the drones detonated breaking through the hull, the hive ship however was also destroyed.

Korceanat winced as the potentia's power output dropped below 20%; this was going to end badly if he couldn't take down the hive ships now.

He swarmed the drones to take down the other hive ships in sequence; he then transferred the target to the cruisers.

The glowing orange streams poured into the cruisers, melting through bioorganic hull armour. The first few were destroyed in seconds however the others began kamikaze runs on the city. The drones moved to intercept, taking out all but one and exhausting the supply, more drones sped from the launcher however it was too late as the cruiser collided with the bottom of Biarmaland's shields, exploding in a massive fireball.

Korceanat was thrown from the chair, his head smashed into one of the consoles, he vaguely say Myra run forwards to help him up, that was till he saw one of the guards slip out, at that point Korceanat left his body to digitally follow him.

Korceanat saw the guard enter the cells where Oberoth was being held.

"Stop him… stop Oberoth…"

Oberoth sat in his cell; it'd taken all of his mental energy just to overcome one guard. As the doors opened Oberoth smiled and got to his feet, the force field deactivated and Oberoth stood before the guard, faster than a blink Oberoth's hand was inside the guard's forehead. Oberoth then removed his hand as the guard broke down to his constituent nanites.

Oberoth broke into a sprint to get away from Korceanat, as he reached a small transport ship he found an officer guarding it.

The officer moved to subdue Oberoth before he reached the end of the corridor, however Oberoth was faster, he slammed his fist into the officer's stomach before bringing his hand into the officer's forehead however, this was when Oberoth was outmatched, the officer grabbed Oberoth's arm and pulled his hand out of the officer's forehead.

Korceanat just rounded the corridor as he saw Commander Olson collide with the wall as Oberoth entered the star hopper.

The teardrop shaped ship left the city and entered hyperspace before anyone could react.