Picon Anchorage was more than a place where ships were built. It was a landmark in its own right, a wonder of the cosmos, a temple to the might of the Colonies, a forge to drive Hephaestus himself to envy. A vast, star-shaped construct of steel, covered in hundreds of square meters of armor, gun emplacements, and assembly lines. The fortress seemed too massive to have been manmade, appearing so grand, so glorious, so gargantuan, it surely must have been built by the gods themselves before it was lifted upon the shoulders of Atlas. On certain nights, the light of Cyrannus would reflect on the station, and from the surface it would almost appear as if there were a second moon in the night sky. Ironically, this massive factory in space greatly resembled a Cylon Basestar, and in fact, many in Colonial Intelligence suggested that their android adversaries had designed their carriers specifically in order to mock this monument to humanity. The central spine of the station connected directly to a tether running the entire length from the Anchorage to another, secondary manufacturing district down on Picon's surface. The tethering cable was essential for the industrial grade elevator which hauled parts and components too delicate to be manufactured in the dangers of the vacuum up to the Anchorage for final assembly. In many ways, it was here that the Cylon War was won. This was the place where the first Columbia-class battlestars were built, along with hundreds of Raptors and thousands of Vipers. It was said that, at the height of the war, Picon Anchorage produced enough war material to build a brand new Battlestar every month, a Gunstar once a week, and in a single day, enough Vipers that if they were laid down end-to-end they would wrap around Picon like a belt of iron and tungsten. From their seats in one of the many conference rooms, officers Adama and Nagala had an impressive view of the Anchorage and Galactica, which lay in dry-dock at the station. The mysterious ship, the so-called Thor, was still located within the starboard flight pod of Adama's ship, where Baltar and a team of the Colonies' best and brightest were still looking over her with a fine-tooth comb, obviously under heavy guard.

"This is all quite fascinating," remarked Admiral Nagala, "But we can't lose focus. What about your original mission?"

The senior Admiral had this strange way of looking continually tired. Over the course of a years-long career, Adama had never seen him ever look truly awake. Wherever he went there was this air about him, like he was thinking about a dozen different things at once. He carried a dozen different burdens upon his shoulders and each one could've easily broken the backs of lesser men. But now Nagala was raising a single eyebrow towards Adama, and was coming dangerously close to looking interested.

Adama sighed. "We couldn't find the Cylons."

Nagala's single raised eyebrow was joined by its twin. "Elaborate please, Commander."

"We found nothing. No Cylon Basestars, no Raiders, no Centurions, nothing. The most we could find were mining outposts for tylium and other ores, but they were all empty. Blasted to wreckage, my engineers believe from the inside, as if they were abandoned and the Cylons didn't want them to be recovered and used against them. The strange thing about it is that the mines themselves were still perfectly usable. Plenty of tylium, iron, uranium, and titanium still there, but nothing there to extract it with."

"Sounds like they left in a hurry. Perhaps they were abandoned once we discovered their plot to invade the Colonies?" suggested Nagala.

"Could be," agreed the Commander. "But it could also be that that strange little ship has something to do with it."

Nagala scoffed as much as it was possible for a man of his disposition to scoff. "I sincerely doubt that. I don't see how a single ship smaller than a gunstar could send the whole toaster armada running, as much as I wish it would.

"We have no idea of that ship's capabilities," responded Adama. "We have even less of an idea if that ship was alone. Could be part of the vanguard of a much larger force."

"Aliens?" Nagala found that his ability to scoff was being greatly tested today. "Is that what you're suggesting Bill? Little green men? The crewmen we recovered were obviously human."

"Humans who we couldn't identify, aside from the names on their uniforms. The only reason someone from the Colonies wouldn't be anywhere in our databases would be if someone went to a lot of trouble to erase them from the system. Why go through all that trouble but still have first and last names sewn onto your clothing?" answered Adama, his logic proving undeniable, though the Admiral wouldn't admit it. "What I'm suggesting is that there's still a lot we don't know. We need more intelligence."

"Now that, I can agree with," replied the Admiral. "Ever since our little incursion into Cylon space seven years ago, back when you commanded the Pegasus, we've been waiting for the Cylon's inevitable return, but now it seems that they've simply disappeared. Part of me wants to sing praise to Zeus and Ares for handing us this victory." Nagala grimaced. "Meanwhile the other part of me can't help but think the same thing I suspect you're thinking."

"This was too easy," finished Bill, a sense of dread creeping into his voice the same way that radiation leaks through a crack in the hull of a Battlestar. "I have no idea what could possibly send the Cylons running like that, but whatever it was it must've been something really big and really scary."

Nagala nodded his head in agreement. "I've sent Rear Admiral Cain and a fleet of ships to investigate further. Whatever it is that's happening out there, she'll figure it out."

"The Razor?" questioned Adama. "Not exactly subtle."

"That's the point. If they're out there, I guarantee this'll get them to respond."

"Do we want them to?" questioned Adama, ominously.

Nagala looked at his colleague intensely. "There's an old proverb in the Ancient Scrolls. Better the enemy you know, than the enemy you don't.

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"Carter, you can't be serious," said O'Neill, looking at her with a stare so penetrating it could've been weaponized.

"Deadly, sir," answered the Lieutenant General. "We've analyzed the hull fragments we've found, and the alloy composition is a near-exact match to the armor plating used by the Free Jaffa on their ha'taks."

"The Free Jaffa aren't the only people in the galaxy who use ha'taks," interrupted Mr. Woolsey. "What about the Lucians, or perhaps some unknown Goa'uld?"

"This alloy is unique to the Free Jaffa," said Carter. "They developed it during the Ori Crusade in an effort to improve their ships' survivability against Ori Motherships. It uses a higher grade of trinium than what the original ha'taks used, though it's still inferior to our own."

"Carter, how sure are you on this?" asked Jack.

"Very," she replied, "I helped them develop that alloy myself. Scans of the recovered hull fragments indicate a 99.7% match. It's also not the only evidence we've uncovered."

"Oh?" said one of the IOA representatives, a heavy-set man with only the barest hint of a Russian accent.

"Hyperdrives tend to leave a sort of subspace 'trail' behind them. Quantum particles, left over from the formation of the egress window from subspace. Our scanners were able to pick up some of these, and the particles definitely originate from the same band of subspace used by a Goa'uld Hyperdrive, and the particle composition precisely matches that of an egress window generated by a drive belonging to a ha'tak."

"That doesn't exactly narrow down the suspect pool," countered O'Neill. "Most races in the galaxy use Goa'uld Hyperdrives."

"Yes, however, we were able to calculate the number of egress windows which were opened simultaneously from the number of quantum particle clusters," said Carter.

"How many?" asked Woolsey.

Carter looked directly into the screen as she said it. "Probably at least 30 ships."

Everyone listening in on the conference call was silent. No one in the galaxy had a fleet that large. There were simply none left who could field and maintain such a force, not since the defeat of both the System Lords and the Lucians. No one except the Free Jaffa Nation. Perhaps no one except for...

"I'm sorry Carter, but I'm just not buying it," declared Jack.

Samantha blinked. "Sir?"

"There's no way in hell that any number of ha'taks could take out a ship that was able to crush the entire Lucian fleet without even breaking a sweat." The Russian raised an eyebrow at the American General's statement.

"Perhaps, but is it not true that your friend has been pouring much of his people's energy into improving their ships?" questioned the IOA official, a man who Woolsey suddenly realized he had yet to meet. An astonishing realization, considering his line of work.

"Okay, firstly, my friend has been pouring most of his energy into improving the well-being of his people," said Jack, surprising Samantha with his level of restraint. "Second, I can't help but dislike what you're insinuating about someone who I've known for years on a professional and personal level. Sir."

"I insinuate nothing," replied the Russian, calmly. "I simply think it would be wise to-"

"Your wisdom is noted. General Carter, I want you to keep looking. Update us once you've found anything worth noting. You're dismissed." Ordinarily Sam wouldn't've left a conversation that was clearly nowhere near through. But something in Jack's voice told her that now was not the time to test his patience. She simply complied with his orders and logged off. The Russian followed suit. From his office in the Pentagon, buried beneath so much dirt and concrete that most of the people who worked in the building above had no idea that it existed, Jack O'Neill buried his face in his hands and sighed.

"You know, I can speak to him instead, if you want," offered Woolsey.

"No," replied Jack. "He's my friend. I'll talk to him. Besides, I promised Teal'c I'd take him fishing when we both had time." The former member of SG-1 failed to mention that that was over three months ago. Time sure flied when you were in charge of an entire planet's safety and security.

Both of them remained silent for a while. Neither of them could really process this. Here Jack was, potentially about to accuse his best friend, the man who'd given so much, and the man he'd given so much to, of being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of human beings. It was madness!

"Assuming that the Thor was fighting Free Jaffa ships, for whatever reason," said Woolsey, "it's still possible that Teal'c has nothing to do with this. It could be a rogue faction of Jaffa, or perhaps the Thor and the Jaffa were fighting together, against someone else."

"Speaking of which, have you been able to figure out what the hell the IOA's orders to Lorne were?" questioned O'Neill.

"No," said Woolsey, a surprising amount of bitterness in his voice. "Apparently some in the IOA think that, ever since my tenure as Commander of the Atlantis Expedition, I've become less reliable, too reckless, too..."

"Too much like us?" said Jack, an obscenely smug grin on his face. "I guess after all this time, we're finally rubbing off on you."

Woolsey rolled his eyes, though he did nothing to deny the General's accusations. "In truth, ever since Atlantis arrived on Earth they've been looking for someone else to lead the Expedition. The process has been halted by some issue in the paperwork." At this point in the conversation, Woolsey began to fidget ever-so-slightly. "An issue which I may or may not have been partly responsible in creating..."

O'Neill outright guffawed in the middle of his office, an action which caused his personal assistant outside to nearly jump out of her seat. Woolsey, for his part, smiled bashfully, suddenly realizing how much he'd changed over the years. "I've come to think of Atlantis as a sort of... second home. I guess the place starts to grow on you in time."

"Yeah," agreed O'Neill. "Carter said the same thing when she got back."

For a brief moment the two sat in companionable silence, a sort of silence which, just a few decades ago, these two men would've never dreamed they'd share. "Say, who was the Russian?"

O'Neill shrugged. "Apparently he was involved in the Russian Stargate Program, before it was combined with its American counterpart. If I remember correctly, he also served in the Russian Army and the KGB. Why do you ask?"

"I've never met him before," said Woolsey, "Strange."

"Indeed," remarked O'Neill, borrowing his best friend's best-known catchphrase. "I didn't think there was anyone in the IOA you didn't know."

"Neither did I."

The General's train of thought was interrupted by a polite knock on the door. "Sorry Dick, I'll talk to you later." The two exchanged good-byes and their conference call, a signal travelling millions of light-years in a matter of moments, was suddenly cut. Jack told whoever was at the door to enter. As he expected, his personal assistant, a young but competent airman who held a shocking resemblance to General Carter in both looks and intellect, put down a report on O'Neill's desk. The General opened the file, ignoring the typical stamp declaring the documents within "Top Secret." As he read, he almost appeared to age with each sentence. He swore under his breath, putting down the file with enough force that his secretary knew immediately that if someone hadn't already died, someone else was going to die very soon.

"Which one of our ships is closest?" questioned the Commander of Homeworld Command.

"The George Hammond and the Pedro II, sir."

O'Neill rolled his eyes at the coincidence. Of course they were. "Inform General Carter that Captain Silva will need to continue the investigation on his own for now. She's needed elsewhere."

The young woman raised an eyebrow. "Where sir?"

"P3X-042," said the General, the tone of his voice shifting as his statement became a command. "Now."