Stargate Command, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Earth
General Landry walked briskly through the halls of the Cheyenne Mountain complex, mulling over the recent events. It had been over 2 weeks since SG-1 had been captured, and the search was not going well. The Sun-Tzu, Odyssey, and Apollo had turned up nothing in their recent searches, leaving SGC without any information on who or what the new alien threat was. Every once in a while, one of their off site bases simply disappeared, as if carved out of the ground, but no ship was able to get there in time to fight off whatever this new threat was.
Landry was snapped back from his musings by an excited Sgt. Harriman. "Commander," Harriman exclaimed, "We have news from Atlantis, they've picked up the stolen Ori vessel on the fringes of the Pegasus Galaxy closest to the Milky Way. The Apollo and the Odyssey have both requested permission to check it out, Sir."
"Send the Apollo, but tell the Odyssey to stay put, in case the data from Atlantis proves to be faulty. We need to get that ship found, but I don't want all our eggs in one basket," Landry responded curtly, and he quickened his pace and walked into his office. Some days he thought the stress would kill him, today just adding another log to the fire. His phone rang, the Pentagon calling. His day just kept getting better.
Cyber-Ori vessel
The Cyber-Controller's mechanical eyes flickered to life. Its connection to the Cyberiad awakened it from hybernation with the news that the Ori vessel was on approach to the human facility known as Atlantis. With 486 seconds until arrival, the Cyber-Controller scanned through all the data the Cybermen had managed to gather on the facility up to this point. After taking several humans captive two weeks ago, the plan had been formulated. Keep the humans and their allies guessing as to the target and move to hit Atlantis when no one was expecting it. The plan was logical.
The Cyber-Controller stood up from the command seat on the bridge and turned to leave. The captured humans, designate SG:1, were now needed. It headed for the conversion chamber, walking as fast as possible with its mechanical gait. It stopped at the doors to the re-purposed bedroom. The three Cybermen guarding the door opened it and entered with the Cyber-Controller.
The lights came on in the room and each conversion unit whirred to life, save the five that held the humans. Cyber-Controller walked by each occupied unit and keyed in the activation sequence. The five figures fell from the alcoves, each one weakened by the two weeks in stasis.
Teal'c was the first to regain consciousness, followed by Mitchell and then Vala. Mitchell fumbled to get into a sitting position, and immediately began to chew the scenery.
"Nice room service you got here," he coughed, "How's the breakfast?"
"Mitchell, shut up," hissed the recently awakened Carter while she struggled to sit up, "we don't need to make them angry." She slumped back over, still weak from the hybernation process.
"We do not have emotional weaknesses, anger is irrelevant," commanded one of the Cybermen, "You will accompany us to the bridge; we need your knowledge and human irrationality to serve us. Follow!". It, and the other two with it, turned toward the door, beckoning to the now fully awake SG-1. The team stumbled to their feet, and after checking each other over , they trudged through the door, following their captors. The Cyber-Controller watched them leave, and turned back to continue interacting with the conversion alcoves.
Atlantis
"Rodney, what've we got?" asked Weir when the entire team had taken their seats in the conference room.
"Well, as you know," began McKay as he stood up and started speaking, "We have been tracking the stolen Ori vessel for the last several hours, but so far it has just slowly cruised along the outskirts of the Pegasus Galaxy, and it has not yet come any closer to Atlantis. However, yesterday, we picked up two Wraith ships, both on an intercept course with the Ori ship. This morning, our sensors picked up a strange subspace energy spike, consistent with what we know of phase shiftin-."
"So let me get this straight," Colonel Sheppard interrupted, "We have some kind of unidentified alien's captured Ori vessel within striking distance, and it has phase shifting?"
"Well, unless the Wraith suddenly got their hands on some phase shifting technology, then... you're right…" McKay answered slowly, his shoulders drooping as the knowledge of the phase technology hit every person in the room.
"These Ori, what are their vessels like?" asked Teyla, voicing a question that most of the group was mulling over, almost all of them having come to Atlantis before the Ori/Tauri war broke.
"Big, look like toilet seats, and have ridiculously high powered beam weapons," McKay quickly answered, "the only thing that Earth has that comes even close to their offensive and defensive technologies are our Asgard shields and Asgard beam weapons."
"So, how do we plan to fight this ship if it does turn its sights to us," Ronan asked in his usual gruff, no nonsense tone. He crossed his arms and set his shoulders as he asked, those around him able to almost hear the gears turning in his head.
"The drones should be enough, especially with the Zed-P-M in operation," McKay responded evenly, and then began to speed up as he got excited, "We have enough drones to take out any ship that comes against us, and we have the cloak ready to use in case anything goes wrong. The shields are ready for us to activate at any time. If I do say so myself, nothing that the Ori vessel has should be a problem."
"Rodney, I need to know how much of this base we can get up to full potential. I don't want us to be sitting ducks out here if that ship finds out where we are. Dismissed." Weir stood up and followed Colonel Sheppard out. "Colonel, I want you to make sure that these men here are ready for a fight forces that can seemingly defeat Priors with ease."
"Yes ma'am," answered Sheppard. He quickened his pace and headed for the armory. Along the way he grabbed the heads of the other Atlantis teams, briefing them on what McKay had discovered.
The Atlantis crew dispersed quickly and got about their duties, shoring up Atlantis's defenses in preparation for what could be another siege. The base gained an unsettling quiet for the next several days, all of the staff and soldiers feeling a cold dread in the pits of their stomachs. Minutes later the subspace sensors picked up the former Ori vessel heading toward Atlantis, via the relative position of the Daedalus and Apollo.
Southern Spiral Arm of the Pegasus Galaxy, rendezvous between Daedalus and Apollo, minutes earlier
Colonel Ellis of the Apollo was in a sour mood. The Ori vessel had been located, but the Daedalus and Apollo had been ordered not to engage the vessel until after the Wraith had ceased engaging it. He couldn't believe that Landry had ordered them to hold off engaging an obviously weakened enemy, but those were the orders.
One of the men on the bridge looked up from the sensor display, and shouted, "Sir, Ori vessel is moving to intercept us. Both Hive Ships have been crippled, but the Ori vessel is still operating at over 70% efficiency.
Ellis ordered a Red Alert, and as the klaxon's blared, he readied himself for a fight. It seemed that that was all he ever got to do. Ori, Wraith, and now this; sometimes he couldn't wait for retirement. On the Daedalus, Caldwell was also preparing for the fight. Just as the two Tau'ri vessels' shields activated, the Ori vessel opened fire.
Earth, 1889
Dorothy was perturbed. The stupid sexism of this time zone pissed her off to no end; the military had been a lot better, even with the violence and the constant Machiavellian machinations of her former traveling companion. Nevertheless, even though she had put all that behind her, she still knew when it would be useful to step into her old shoes again. When the water in Dorothy's glass began to twist into the shape of a humanoid figure, Dorothy knew it was that time once more.
"We have another… mission for you," the water figure said. "I am sorry, I know we promised, but sometimes these things cannot be avoided. A pivotal event in… his… history has removed itself from the space/time Web. And although we have successfully repaired the damage, the instigators of the egregious crime have fled to another Web. We have signed a nonaggression pact with several of the more advanced civilizations there, to encourage cooperation between that Web and ours, and we need this mess cleaned up quickly before any questions are asked. We can give you the coordinates, but that is all I am allowed to do."
"Plausible deniability, that's not like you. Is the job getting to you?" Dorothy asked in an almost sarcastic tone, and then added as almost an after thought, "What am I up against?"
"Cybermen," the water figure answered.
"And him…?" Dorothy slyly smiled
"Just you, I'm afraid."
"Oh, wait until he hears about this one then," Dorothy chuckled. "I get all the action." When the water figure splashed back into her glass, Dorothy stood up and grabbed her black bomber jacket. Shewlakedalk toward her awaiting motorcycle, but stopped and turned as the waiter called to her.
"Ma'am, Dorothy ma'am. You need to pay." His voice was twinged with a German accent, interesting for this part of France.
"The names not Dorothy…" she smiled with her wicked, suicidal grin as she stepped onto her motorcycle, "And I have work to do." She pulled her long, dark brown hair into a ponytail and threw on her jacket, and laughed as she revved her bike. "If only the Professor could see me now.
Updated 5/18/2015
