Author's Note: This chapter makes use of the Anquietas (Ancients of the Milky Way pre-ascension) from Stargate and some elements from Star Trek (silithium, the comet, 'Banolas', etc.). I was very excited to write this, since it's my first significant Star Trek-Stargate crossover! Again, it's a big exploration of unexplained lore (particularly in Star Trek), so it made for some fun speculation!

Also, the last chapter (the scene with the Voth) was merged with chapter 3. This story here may take up a whole chapter on its own.


-= Approximately 20 million years ago, Earth, Antarctica =-

Who am I? Why am I here? Those were questions that forever haunted him in the dead of night. It made sleep a thing of the past. He rolled over in bed and tried to clear his mind. His gaze crept from the ceiling down the green and beige walls of Atlantis... and settled on her. Angelic and bright as the city itself, Alaine slept beside him with nary a care in the world. Part of him admired her for that. Even after all that happened, the plague beginning to spread, she maintained a certain calm that was lacking in the others of her kind.

'Her kind'. Even years after his mysterious appearance in the disembarkation room, he still thought of himself as the outsider. Then again, so did the others. For the longest time, or so he recalled, they held him for interrogation, only letting him go when it became clear he knew no more than they did. The bright light that filled the stargate room, the loud and grating sound that accompanied it - none of it he could explain.

So what else could they do? They planned to release him into the city proper, beyond the walls of Atlantis. Out there, on a vast southerly continent covered by towering spires, he could live among the civilians until his memories returned. But they never did.

Then, on the day of his departure, he bumped into her. Alaine. Captain of the Helia, Alaine had come to Atlantis that day to report a threat encountered by a research team on a world called Banolas. An asteroid of sufficient size and density would strike the city and release a stream of silithium into the upper atmosphere. If that happened, both the hidden outpost and its attached research team would be in danger by increased tectonic activity and shield failure. Given it was Atlantis' responsibility, they needed someone from the city who could design a way to safely dispose of the asteroid.

-= An untold number of years ago =-

"I might have an idea." Alaine eyed the stranger with caution and disbelief. By then, the stranger didn't have a reputation, nor an identity. Perhaps he sought to change all that.

"Are you sure?" She seemed unconvinced, but hopeful. "We have teams of scientists working on the problem now. What can you offer that they cannot?"

Pause, followed by a brief but subtle smirk on the stranger's face. "I may have no idea who I am, but it couldn't hurt to let me look at your sensor readouts, now could it?"

That's when Alaine capitulated. They'd need all the help they could get, and they didn't have time to be picky. Despite the initial distrust the stranger had experienced, he'd be shown this one courtesy of trust for what felt like the first time in his life. No matter his lack of memory, he knew that the person he'd been was no more trustworthy than a Markoffian fire lizard... whatever those were. All he knew was that they bit the hands that fed them as often as they protected their young; and even then, it would often be without reason.

But reminiscing about the past he no longer had would have to wait. The comet wouldn't wait for him to piece his life back together. As he stared down at the readout on the monitor nearly an hour later, he became convinced he'd been a scientist in that past life. Silithium's composition could allow for the generation of powerful energy, something he felt was a bygone testament to a long, lost civilization of yesteryear. Again, that was neither here nor there, but given what he somehow knew, that sword of stars didn't belong there.

"What do you mean?"

"This is obviously the result of a large celestial object passing through at right angles to the plane of the star system. Probably a black hole."

"Then how do we counter it?"

"Oh, well that's really quite simple. You-" He froze mid-sentence, a sudden twinge of deja vu awakening what felt like a memory buried deep within his subconscious. He'd done this before. But where? More importantly, when? "That's odd."

"What?" Alaine raised an eyebrow and looked at him with a frown. "What is it?"

"I'm... not sure." For the first time in his life, or so he imagined, he didn't know something. "What do you call it? Deja vux?" Before she could answer, he closed his eyes and shook his head, hoping to rid himself of the feeling so he could return to the matter at hand. "Nevermind."

After another short study of the sensor readouts, the stranger finally had an answer.

"Your vessel... it uses hyperdrive technology, correct?" Alaine would've asked where he'd heard that, but the stranger waved it off and interrupted her again, much to her chagrin. "Well, there's your answer!" Excitedly, he waved at the computer display. "If you can catch the asteroid in a hyperspace field, you can shift it out of phase long enough for both it and your ship to pass right through the planet!" With that, he clapped his hands together and smiled, certainly proud of himself.

Alaine narrowed her eyes and looked at him as if he were an idiot. Perhaps that wasn't far from the truth. "And if we rematerialize in the planet's mantle? What then?"

The stranger looked no less confident, his arms crossed as he glanced back at her with that same smug glint in his eye. "We'll cross that bridge if we come to it."


An hour later, after the science council acknowledged the fact that the stranger's plan had some merit, Alaine prepared to return to her ship. That's when the stranger caught up to her in the hall, just as she was making her way to the nearest ring transporter.

"Going somewhere?" He questioned in an almost sarcastic tone. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Nothing of consequence," Alaine answered only too curtly, prompting the stranger to feign as though she had struck at his heart.

"You wound me," he claimed as sarcastically as before. "How are you going to pull this off without me?"

"I'm sure we'll find some way." She turned and gave him a look that mirrored his own smug expression. "... /without/ you."

That prompted the stranger to grow irate. He sped up just to keep in step with her, and eventually overtook her. Standing between her and the door to the ring transport room, he did what he never expected himself to do. He pleaded.

"I know you've no reason to like me or even to /trust/ me. But I /need/ to be on this mission. I can't tell you how or why, but something about this feels too... familiar. It could be the only chance I have at learning who I am and what I'm doing here. And maybe..." His eyes searched hers, as if they could provide some kind of meaning to that feeling. "Maybe this is why I'm here. To help you. To fix a mistake I made long ago."

Although Alaine wanted to question him further, sensing that he was beginning to learn more about who he was, she realized they didn't have the time. But both she and the Council needed to know the answer to that question just as much as they needed to resolve this crisis. So, without any further words, she took the stranger by the arm and forced him to follow her to the center of the ring platform. "If you're lying..." She warned him through a stern gaze, then turned to the operator standing by at the ring controls. "Energize."

For once, as the rings fell from the ceiling and piled up atop one another around them, Alaine got the last word.


"We've entered the Banolas star system," announced the first officer, who stood where she could see the ship's navigational charts on a transparent display at the front of the bridge, off to the side. "The comet has been located. It's nearing the planet's second moon."

"Move us into range." Alaine pressed the tips of her fingers together in front of her, silently praying they would get there in time. "How much longer before it reaches the planet?"

"Thirty minutes."

Alaine grit her teeth and took a deep breath before tapping the comm control on the arm of her seat. "Engineering, is everything ready down there?"

"Almost," responded the chief engineer, who had left the stranger monitoring hyperspace field readouts - a job fit only for one with lesser intelligence, or so the stranger argued. "When we bring the hyperdrive online again, we'll need to have the calculations down to the microsecond. If we're off by even a moment, we'll rematerialize within the planet's mantle."

"How's your new 'crew member' holding up?" She hated calling him that, but given his insistence to help, she felt he at least needed to be given a chance.

"Well, sir, I-" Before he could continue, he was interrupted by a voice off in the distance.

"I resent being forced to work like this!" The stranger sounded rather annoyed, which only made Alaine feel more exasperated than she needed to be. "It's a waste of my talents! I should be down in the science lab, helping your people make the calculations needed!"

"You said you wanted to help, so here's your chance." Alaine knew this answer wouldn't hold the fairly egotistical stranger over for long, so she added, "We don't have time to test you for mathematical proficiency, and we can't risk you making a mistake."

In essence, she consigned him to the same fate as many of her crew: to start out near the bottom of the career ladder and work their way up. Alaine needed to know she could count on him, and what the true extent of his abilities were, before she could assign him any duties as important as that which the higher-ranking engineers were responsible for. That may have put a dent in his oversized ego, but he would have to deal with it.

"Captain." The first officer turned and looked at her with an unmistakable look of anxiety. "It's time."

Alaine took another deep breath. Then she ordered the helm to bring them in close to the asteroid. As the ship slowly flew past the second moon and toward the comet, they were greeted with the sight of the planet below. It had undergone a similar kind of terraforming to that which they witnessed on several other worlds, including Terra. Now, as they passed through the silithium trail and heard the gentle sparkle of the glittering material as it passed through the shield and scattered over the hull, they were the only ones that could save it.

"Selene." When Alaine called her name, the first officer looked back at her, her eyes betraying her fear. It was a selfless kind of fear, when one didn't know if a loved one would live or die. Alaine had known her for years, and knew about the man on the surface she feared about. "Don't worry. Your husband's going to be just fine.

"That goes doubly to all of you," Alaine addressed the entire bridge crew. Many of them had family or friends on the surface, doing some delicate work in bioengineering. That's why they were the ship assigned to ferry supplies and personnel between Atlantis and Banolas in the first place. Banolas was a second home to them. "Stay calm. We'll get through this."

As the ship's trajectory lined up with the comet's and flew slightly behind and under it, the hyperdrive engine could be heard powering up. Then, as the crew drew baited breath, it activated. A temporary wormhole formed around the ship and the comet in a flash of blue, and before they could let out that air in their lungs, they were in hyperspace - the comet right ahead, just as they'd hoped.

While the ride got bumpy, they marvelously held the field carrying them together. The engineers responsible for calculating the timing necessary waited until the opportune moment, when their equations matched up and it was the best time to exit hyperspace.

Only, their equations were wrong.

They emerged from hyperspace intact, but a blinding light followed by warning klaxons told them this was /not/ the predicted exit point. When the digital glass screen compensated for the increased light flooding on to the bridge, Alaine could see where they were: right in front of the sun. Before she could even get her bearings, Serene announced their hull temperature was rising at an alarmingly fast rate, and the shield holding back the heat was failing. Though the shielding could protect them from thermal sources as hot as molten lava, the surface of the sun was a completely different bag of nuts they'd yet to crack.

"Get the hyperdrive back online!" Alaine shouted through the comm link to engineering.

"Captain, if we enter hyperspace before the engine recharges, we could tear the ship apart!" Though she figured nobody would argue with her, the engineer - always the one to debate - answered her call with all the logic they didn't need to hear right now. "And the engineering team has to make new calculations or-"

"Ruari, just do it!" Alaine couldn't be any less interesting in hearing the man's objections. They were fast approaching the sun, and the silithium appeared to be sweeping toward its surface. What effect that could have on it, she didn't even want to know.

"Captain!" Again, it was Serene who exclaimed moments before another flash of light caught them by surprise. Then it became clear what had happened, without her even needing to explain. A pillar of fire followed the line of silithium up toward them like a fuse following a line of gunpowder... and it was heading straight toward them.

"Now, Ruari!"

"Hyperdrive engaged!" Suddenly, the ship rocked forward violently as they entered hyperspace, just as the solar flare skimmed the top of their ship.

And just as happened with many of the rest of her crew, Alaine was thrown from her seat and slammed her head into a nearby free-standing console.

When Alaine came to, it was as if the ship's inertial dampeners had gone offline along with the lights and the computer systems. Despite her daze, she could see console displays flickering with static, and several of her crew floating in the air. Something cold and wet lightly hit her cheek. She reached up to rub it off with a finger and hold it in front of her so she could get a better look through the haze of her vision. It was blood.

"Ugh," she grunted as she pushed herself off the floor and floated a ways into the middle of the room. Even as she tried to rub the blurriness in her eyes away, she bumped into a body and turned around in shock. It wasn't Serene, as far as she could tell, but it was still unconscious or otherwise dead. She reached out for the man's wrist and checked his pulse. It was steady... but weak. Fumbling around for the back of her chair, she managed to latch on to it and pull herself down to the communication controls on her armrest.

"Alaine to infirmary. Medical emergency." No response. She tried again, but received the same answer. "Alaine to engineering. What's our status?" Beat. "Engineering?"

Damn, she thought to herself. The comms must be out. As she tried to consider her next course of action, her eyesight had begun to clear enough for her to at least notice something out of place. It wasn't on the bridge itself, but outside, where she expected to find them in hyperspace. Instead, what she saw both amazed and terrified her.

They were in hyperspace, but it was nothing like the hyperspace she'd seen before. It was like an ocean of ripples surrounded them in a tunnel, a distant light at the end encircled by a thin ring of light. Strings or waves of light blue energy passed both by and through them, as if they weren't even there. The comet appeared intact, at least, floating listlessly ahead of them as they crossed what must have been a greater distance than they'd planned.

"Alaine." A whisper startled Alaine. She tried to look around to see where it was coming from, but everyone on the bridge appeared no more conscious than the last she saw of them.

Confused, Alaine didn't get a chance to respond before a flash caught her off-guard... and she found herself standing back in Atlantis, in front of the Council. Everything about it seemed different somehow. Rather than the warm lighting that often greeted her in the city, she found her surroundings bathed in gold and bronze, as if the entire spectrum of color had changed in the light around her.

"Alaine." When she looked, it was Selene wearing the robes of a Council member sitting behind the table alongside much of the rest of her crew.

"Serene?" Alaine reached up and touched the side her head, a migraine from her impact making it difficult to even think straight. "How-how did we get back here?"

"What are you doing here?" Serene asked, completely ignoring Alaine's question.

"Here?" Alaine looked around in confusion. "Why aren't we on the ship?"

"The ship?" Now it was Serene's turn to look confused. She shared that look with the rest of the crew, who seemed to mull over Alaine's question with equal amounts of uncertainty.

"Oh no..." Alaine felt the color leave her face as a terrifying revelation dawned upon her. "Don't tell me... we're all dead?"

"What is... death?" Ruari leaned forward, his hands crossed together on the table's surface in front of him. He looked genuinely interested, and that only worried Alaine more.

"No... no, this has to be a dream. I'm unconscious." As Alaine tried to reason with herself, the crew watched like children observing their parents' behavior. The experience felt uncanny. "You're all figments of my imagination. No, I need to wake up. I need to be back on the ship."

Almost as soon as she said that, she found herself standing on the bridge of the ship again, the sun right outside the window ahead. But she was in her seat, gravity had been restored, and every one of her crew looked no worse for wear - except they continued to gaze at her like before.

"The comet!" Alaine quickly stood up and took a few determined steps toward the viewport. "Did it hit the sun? Are we in hyperspace yet? Is everyone safe?"

"They are safe." Serene's calm exclamation drew Alaine's attention away from the display. "We are of Banolas. We will not allow it to be destroyed."

"So... we did it?" Alaine found herself almost tearing up in happiness. The planet, the whole solar system, had been saved. That's all she wanted to know. Her head began to lighten. "Good. That's... good."

Before she could say something more, she found herself drifting off into sleep.


When she awoke, it was with the stranger looming over her in concern. Despite her vertigo, she quickly sat up and looked back out the viewport. They were still within hyperspace, but something appeared wrong - this time within the ship.

"Where's everyone?" Sure enough, the bridge was completely devoid of people. Not even the sprinkles of blood were anywhere to be found. Gravity and lighting had been restored. "What happened?"

"Just as I warned could happen." Although Alaine was in no mood to deal with the stranger's smarmy attitude, he didn't seem to care. "Your calculations were incorrect. When we activated the hyperdrive a second time, we were hit by a solar flare. That caused the loss of most of the ship's computer systems. I was able to get basic gravity and life support back online." He indicated that much by peering around the now-vacant bridge. "But it seems this has become a ghost ship, figuratively speaking."

It didn't make sense. "Did they abandon ship? Are there any escape pods left?"

"Oh, those were the first things I checked. I had no intention of staying aboard this doomed vessel." Again, his words irked Alaine, but she felt too groggy to say or do anything about it. "Fortunately, they're all accounted for."

Alaine felt a sharp pain in her head and winced. The stranger held a scanning device up to her and checked the readout. With a grim frown, he looked up at her.

"You have a severe concussion. We need to get you to the medical bay."

Before she could argue, the stranger had carefully lifted her up by the shoulder. She was in no condition to argue. But as they approached the door leading to the transport pad, she collapsed to her knees in a coughing, blood-spewing fit. Either out of impatience or an odd sense of heroism, the stranger then lifted her into his arms with some difficulty and stepped onto the transport pad. It took some maneuvering, but he was able to select one of the dots that appeared on the layout display, teleporting them to a different part of the ship.

Soon enough, she was laying on a bio-bed in sickbay, with the stranger trying to make heads or tails of the various medical implements her people used. When he finally approached with a small, palm-fitted device Alaine knew could heal most of her wounds, she asked in a weak and fading voice, "What about the hyperdrive? The comet?"

"Yes, yes," the stranger answered in an annoyed tone of voice. "While the rest of your stalwart crew was out, I did a new set of calculations. From what little I could gather without the ship's sensors, we've created a wormhole." She didn't have to ask what that was, given that the basic principles of the stargate - and even hyperdrive, in a more temporary sense - created wormholes. "It's much too strong for the hyperdrive to handle. If we try to exit hyperspace too early, we risk losing the entire ship. If we leave too late, we might end up in another galaxy... or another sun."

"So... the hyperdrive is-"

"Set to deactivate itself slowly, in stages. According to my calculations, we'll be on the other side of the galaxy, but once the hyperdrive is recharged, we can easily return to Banolas."

Alaine felt a wave of relief at that. The healing device had already begun to mend much of the damage to her nervous system, so the pain was receding. Still, one thing bugged her. She looked at the stranger in bewilderment. "Why did you stay?"

"Leaving now would be suicide." Of course. If he left via the escape pods, there was no telling whether they could escape hyperspace safely or not. Then his voice softened. "But more importantly, I felt I owed it to you... for giving me a chance."

She smiled, but quickly caught herself and looked away with a a grimace. Despite no longer feeling inordinate amounts of pain as before, she still felt weak and exhausted. It would be best if I just rested my eyes for a few minutes, she thought. Just a few minutes.

As she dazed off once more, the ship buckled a little. The stranger didn't have to leave Alaine's side to check what it was. With merely a single button tap on the panel beside the bed, he summoned the one clear camera view showing the phenomenon behind them.

A whirlpool of blue opened up, its central eye glowing ever so brightly. The sound of its humming could be heard as the chroniton particles gently caressed the ship's hull. Then, in one final act of magnificence, it inhaled those particles again and withdrew into its invisible shell with a loud and sudden woosh.

Relief washed over the stranger, who looked back over at Alaine with a grateful smile.

As if briefly possessed by a memory, he whispered. "Now we only have to look forward."