DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, Stargate, or anything you may find in my story that in any way resembles a character, story, or plot that is owned by another person.
A/N: This is not a new chapter, just merging part two into the end of part one and making it one story.
Harry Potter and Setesh's Blunder - Part 2
Chapter 1
Four days later with the VAS Columba still in the void between galaxies, about a day before reaching the mid-way point to Pegasus. Hermione was sitting at Comms. and detected an anomalous object approaching their position traveling at 99.9% of light speed on a trajectory for Earth.
"What do you think it is?" asked Ayiana.
"Can't be certain, but my first guess is it would be a ship, but at that speed it would take 10's of thousands of years to even reach the edge of the Milky Way galaxy." answered Hermione.
"Wait a minute, we are receiving an audio distress signal." continued Hermione.
"Put it on speakers."
"Hail, approaching vessel. This is Captain Helia of the Lantean Battleship Tria. Our hyper-drive is damaged and we request assistance from any friendly vessel." said Captain Helia.
"The message seems to be repeating every 5 minutes." said Hermione.
"Open hailing frequencies and I will answer." said Ayiana.
"Hail, Lantean Battleship Tria, this is Captain Ayiana of the Volans Alliance Battleship Columba. How may we assist you?" said Ayiana.
"Columba, this is Tria actual, Captain Helia speaking. Thank you for responding. Our hyper-drive was damaged beyond repair and we are presently making our way only on our sub-light drive that we've modified for it's fastest possible speed." replied Captain Helia.
"Understood Captain, this is Columba actual, Captain Ayiana speaking. If you would come to a full stop we will match you and we can discuss how we might be able to assist." replied Captain Ayiana.
"Thank you Captain, we will come to a full stop." replied Captain Helia.
"Ayiana, the Tria is coming to a full stop." said Harry, from the Operations console.
"Harry, please bring the Columba to a full stop and match the Tria at station keeping." said Ayiana.
"Columba at full stop, matching station keeping." replied Harry.
...
A moment later, a hologram of Captain Helia appeared on the bridge of the Columba.
"Hello Captain, I am Helia of Atlantis, Captain of the Battleship Tria. We are grateful for you responding to our distress signal." said Captain Helia.
"You're welcome Captain. I am Ayiana, Captain of the Battleship Columba. We are actually on a mission to the Pegasus galaxy in the hope of finding what to us is the lost city of Atlantis, and to find out what happened to our people. I assume now that we've found you that means Atlantis has survived all these millions of years. We would be honored to help you return there if you wish, except we do not know it's location at present time. Part of our mission was to find it in the first place. If you and your crew want to beam over to the Columba, we could transport you. Your ship is too big for our tractor beam and we could not tow you through FTL safely anyway without slowing down a great deal. I should also warn you that we only have unused quarters for 60 people so, if you have a larger crew we might need you all to group up for the remaining 4 day transit to the Pegasus galaxy." replied Ayiana.
"Thank you Captain Helia. We will take you up on that offer. We have 328 crew so we would just share at about 5-6 persons per quarters for the time it takes to make the trip to Atlantis." replied Helia.
"If you don't mind me saying so I must say, your ship looks like a duplicate of our ancient Destiny ship class design but, our scans show your ship to be much more advanced than it was in several respects. I would very much like to hear the tale of your people. To answer your other question about Atlantis. At the moment I am not entirely sure. I will be happy to tell you more in detail later once we get settled but, we actually left Atlantis 10,000 years ago in normal time, but due to the relativistic effects of our near light-speed travel and our use of the ships stasis tubes, to us only several years have passed. We left Atlantis as it was about to fall to our worst enemy with the rest of the crew there preparing to abandon the city and sink her. Our last orders were in fact to rendezvous with them on Earth, but as you can see we never made it. Your presence implies that some did, but I'd like to know more when you can." replied Captain Helia.
Harry sent Ayiana a quick message via the Arm Virga's.
"Captain, why don't you prepare your crew for beam out to our ship and if you don't mind we would like to contact our space station with the coordinates of the Tria and have them tow her back to our shipyard to attempt to make full repairs to your ship, while you join us in our quest to learn the fate of Atlantis." said Ayiana.
"That is a splendid idea Captain. We will transmit the command codes for the Tria and slave her to your command prior to beaming over." replied Captain Helia.
...
A little while later...
Captain Helia and her crew of 328 were getting situated into their new shared quarters. Captain Helia and her XO shared one quarters, and the rest shared the other 59 quarters at about 6 to 1.
After everything was settled, all the crew had transferred all their personal belongings, and they were ready to get back underway-Harry sent a sub-space signal to the Marauder's Den to inform them of what just occurred with the full logs, plus coordinates and the command codes of the Tria for them to come tow her to the station and effect repairs and of course-reverse engineer the technology.
With the Columba back underway for the Pegasus galaxy with coordinates to Atlantis supplied by the Tria's First Officer; the officers all sat around Captain Ayiana's table enjoying some after dinner conversation.
"So please, Captain Ayiana, tell us more about your people and how you all have fared since Atlantis left the Milky Way millions of years ago. I assume that our leaders and civilians who fled Atlantis for the Milky Way 10,000 years ago have been a part of your society during these years?" asked Captain Helia.
"In a way yes. I will also ask my Operations Officer Harry Potter and Communications Officer Hermione Potter, as well as my Science Officer Rodney McKay-to help answer some of this because I only recently became aware of some of this myself. You see, my story is..." began Ayiana.
Ayiana told them all about how she was an original Alteran frozen in cryogenic suspension 7.5 million years ago, who's last sight then was of watching her dear Atlantis fly away without her. Then how she was recently rescued by Harry and his friends and their promise to help her find Atlantis again, and her promise to help them on their journey to found their new colony, uplift their society, and protect Earth...
Then she turned to Harry and company to explain the rest, or at least the parts they felt like sharing so far...including how Harry and his people are genetic cousins of theirs descended from the Lanteans who made it back to Earth. But that they only number about 1 million worldwide out of a population of about 6 billion other humans on Earth who have not inherited much of the Lantean or Alteran genome, at least so far...
"Wow. That is quite interesting folks. I take it then Harry, from all that has been said here this evening, you really are the leader of your people then? If so, how is it that Ayiana is Captain of this ship? No offense Captain, I'm just confused." asked Captain Helia.
"That's okay Captain, I'll let Harry explain." replied Ayiana.
"Yes, in a way I guess I am the leader of our group, or at least that is to say our own little colony that has left Earth. But, I like to think of it as a shared leadership. Our top people work together as a council of sorts. They do seem to want to continue to come to me for leadership and final decisions on the big stuff, probably since I was the one that started it all. But, I promised Ayiana we would help her find Atlantis and I told her I'd give her a ship to do so once we mastered inter-galactic travel. So, when we built our first Battleship class ship, I built two, one to give her as promised. As far as I'm concerned, this is her ship. So, while I'm on this expedition helping her out, she's my Captain." answered Harry.
"That is a very noble thing you've done Harry. I'm impressed." said Captain Helia.
"Thanks. Now that I've heard about what drove you all away from Atlantis, I hope everything will be okay. I've learned enough already to know that anything that could defeat Atlantis ought to scare the crap out of me. I wonder what we will find there?" replied Harry.
"I don't know. Your concern is wise. We only know the last word which is that they were going to sink the city and flee through the stargate back to Earth. Now, if everything went to plan and it sounds like the group did travel to Earth as planned. If the city survived it should be sunken beneath the waves, protected by it's shields. The downside to that is in 10,000 years the Potentia powering the city should be close to depletion by now-in fact if they haven't depleted already it would only be because all major systems are disabled and no one is living there. If we find it and can get aboard her, we will need to find power. Ironically if we had a fully powered Atlantis we could launch Potentia creating satellites that would make new ones for us, but we need to get her onto the surface and full space operations restored first, which again ironically will require Potentia." answered Captain Helia.
"Well," began Rodney.
"We have about four more days in transit. Perhaps your Chief Engineer can assist me in my lab and we might be able to come up with enough temporary short-lived power to make something work." said Rodney.
"I will help too Rodney." said Harry.
"Okay, that sounds like a good idea. Captain Ayiana, does your ship have cloak? It would be a good idea to approach the Lantea system under cloak just in case the Wraith are lurking around." said Captain Helia.
"Yes, we have a cloak. That's a good idea. We'll do that. I also want to suggest that unless you and your First Officer are looking forward to a few days downtime during this transit, you could both take up positions on our bridge and we can continue to get to know each other and we can continue to make plans for Atlantis once we get there. It sounds like we might have a major salvage operation on our hands before we can accomplish anything else." said Ayiana.
"That is a good idea. We'll take you up on that and our Chief Engineer can work with Rodney and Harry. Sounds like good plans. Thank you." answered Captain Helia.
...
Meanwhile back in the Milky Way.
Sirius was half-way into his project to re-fit the other Ha'tak into an Ursa class; and he was also drafting up plans for their first new Carrier class ship that he planned to re-purpose all those spare Death Glider and Al'kesh onto. The Death Glider's will become un-manned drones that can fly by combat AI or by combat AI-linked to ground control consoles that are manned for remote operation by actual pilots. The Al'kesh will be remodeled a little bit but otherwise will serve their original purpose, but will include new roles for espionage, exploration, medevac, et al.
Then he got a sub-space message from Harry.
"Holy crap!" Sirius exclaimed out loud to nobody, since nobody was left on the station anymore except hundreds of robots and Dobby.
Sirius sent a message to Remus sharing the status Harry sent and his request to have the Marauder take the Tria under tow, etc.
"Remus, it's going to take 3 more days to finish the refit of the Ha'tak. So I can't go do this until then but, when it's ready I'm going to leave it in orbit of Edora and take the Marauder's Den and the Cygnus to the edge of the galaxy. Then take the Cygnus to the coordinates Harry sent to tow the Tria to the Den, and then return with it here. All of that is going to take me probably a month to do. I can't take the Den into the inter-galactic void, and the Cygnus will only be able to tow the Tria slowly through FTL back to the Den-and then only after I amp up the tractor beam by quadrupling it before I depart, according to Harry. So, I will need you to hold down the fort here and on Earth while I'm gone." said Sirius.
"That's fine. Sounds like a good find and worth the effort. Do you mind if I bring the Ha'tak back to Earth so that I can command everything from one place though? If something hit's the fan on Edora while you are gone I will just have everyone there take refuge under the shields and use the stargate to evacuate to Ursa. Also, since I will need to put my whole focus on being the sole guy in charge of defense for that month I'm going to move up my upcoming meetings with the new Joint Space Operations Command to give them the little Easter egg of technology we want to give them a little bit early, now that they are officially in an alliance." replied Remus.
"Okay, that is all fine with me. Thanks Remus." said Sirius.
"No problem. I hope Harry's mission doesn't take too long or we're going to start to get too stretched." said Remus.
...
Four days later.
The Columba exited hyperspace above the planet Lantea.
"Well, is this it?" asked Ayiana?
"Yes, this is the planet." answered Captain Helia.
"Alright, we'll go in as planned. Sensors have confirmed Atlantis is where you expected it to be with shields weak but operational. And sensors detect no Wraith or any other anomalous craft or objects nearby and no sentient life on the planet." said Ayiana.
"Rodney, please activate the shield modifications that Helia gave us to modulate our shields to Atlantis shield frequency, squawking the friendly IFF codes." said Ayiana.
"Shield modifications and IFF activated." replied Rodney.
"Harry, take us into the atmosphere above Atlantis and prepare to take the Columba under water." said Ayiana.
"Columba en-route to Atlantis, entering the atmosphere in 3-2-1..." replied Harry.
"Columba is in position directly above the surface of Atlantis." said Harry.
"Take us down." said Ayiana.
"Columba going submersible in 3-2-1..."
"Atlantis ahead on main viewer..." said Harry.
"Ah, there she is..." said Ayiana with a small tear leaking from her eye.
Helia noticing, said "I forget sometimes that you have missed Atlantis for far longer than we have." said Captain Helia.
"I hope we can save her. To have come all this way..." said Ayiana.
"I believe we can. You have some smart people there. I think their plan is sound. I'm not sure we would have thought of it ourselves. It's an interesting way to get the job done." sighed Captain Helia.
"It helps that they've had the incentive to jury-rig a power source to plug into a Potentia receiving conduit before." smirked Ayiana.
"Ayiana, if you are done making fun of us half-blood Lanteans, we're ready to land and dock on the South-East pier of Atlantis now." said Harry.
"Make it so, number one." replied Ayiana.
"Too much TV Harry, I told you." murmured Hermione.
...
A little while later after the Columba was safely docked on the South-East Pier and they established a dry seal to Atlantis, they began disembarking from Columba and embarking onto Atlantis. All 328 Lantean officers and crew, and the 4 intrepid adventurers from Earth and their 90 human form robot crew, transporting the 9 rather large cold fusion reactor's that needed re-assembly in Atlantis power room, and other associated gear.
As they made their way to the power room, emergency lighting came on bit by bit and Helia remarked. We need to make this quick, the city does not have much power left and it's attempt to re-enable life support systems upon our entry is quickly draining it's reserves.
...
Moments later the entire troop of them made it to the main power room and they could see that two of the three Potentia were entirely depleted and the final third was about to go.
Rodney, Harry, the Chief Engineer and their 90 robots quickly got to work implementing Rodney's plan. It would take a little while just to get everything into it's proper place, re-assembled, re-tested, cables run, etc.
"So Harry, tell me again how all of this is going to work to get us the power we need?" asked Captain Helia.
"Well, Rodney is configuring each of the three faux Potentia receivers to take power from three cold-fusion reactors operating in parallel per seat. The continuity will be drawn from two primary reactor's supplying the main line feed each, with the third as redundant standby which will also be automatically rotated with one of the others in the circuit once each hour to give each one a one hour rest after every two hours of continuous use." began Harry.
"According to his and your Chief Engineer's calculations, this should provide enough power to turn on all of Atlantis main systems, including maintaining full shields when not taking significant fire of course, and minus any offensive weaponry or space flight capability. However we will be able to operate the hangers and launch bays. So, the plan is to surface Atlantis, then use the matter constructors to build 3 Potentia creation satellites in your nanite lab; and transport them to Lantea's star via your, what do you call them again, 'puddle jumpers'? Then, we just need to keep things steady as she goes here for the month it takes for those new Potentia to fully grow their crystal matrices and charge their quantum foam reactors." answered Harry.
"And we think we can keep things 'steady as she goes' for that month as you said?" asked Captain Helia.
"Yeah, as long as we don't try to get adventurous and no adventure tries to come to us. We will still have the Columba, and you have crew to man your 32 'puddle jumpers' and our 3 shuttles, if we need to mount a defense here. The Columba doesn't have the shields or firepower of one of your Aurora class, but she's a tough little ship. Plus, as I've been told, your puddle jumper's can fire up to 10 drones each and I've heard of nothing that can hold up against a Lantean drone." replied Harry.
"Well, normally that is true. But you may not realize that the drones fired from a puddle jumper that are not powered by Potentia have only a portion of the fire power of one of Atlantis drones or an Aurora that is retrofit with Potentia like ours was." said Captain Helia.
"Ah, well, hopefully it won't come to all that. But, we'll do our best." said Harry.
...
"Alright everyone, we're ready to plug-in these new reactor's in place of the Potentia." said Rodney.
"Do we have a go?" continued Rodney.
"Captain Helia, this is your ship, err city, I mean city-ship..." said Harry.
"You have a go." answered Captain Helia with an amused smirk on her face.
"Still having difficulty wrapping your head around a ship the size of a city?" asked Captain Helia.
"Well, yeah. I mean Ayiana has told us all about it of course and we've seen designs in our copy of the knowledge repository. But, actually seeing it in person. This is simply awe inspiring. The ancestors sure liked to build things big didn't they?" replied Harry.
"That they did." replied Captain Helia.
...
Soon, the group standing around so main lighting coming on all around them. Various consoles lighting up, etc.
"It looks like it worked Rodney. Congratulations." said Harry.
Meanwhile the Tria's Chief Engineer was running from console to console checking readings and power levels.
"It looks like it's working. Power levels across all three Potentia receivers are reading nominal and balanced. Atlantis is currently fooled into believing it has the full power of 3 Potentia operating at 3% capacity each. Not much in reality, but enough to give us full operation of all main systems." said the Chief Engineer.
"Okay, let's go to the bridge then and get the rest of this going." said Captain Helia.
"Chief, you stay here in the Power room and maintain control and let us know on the bridge if there is any status change. Ayiana, can he keep your robots here to assist him if needed?" said Captain Helia.
"Certainly. I was going to suggest that." said Ayiana.
"Okay, Chief, you have your orders, as well as your Engineering crew.
"The rest of you break up into the teams we discussed earlier. You three teams go prep. for flight in the puddle jumpers; and you four can head to the lab to begin constructing our 3 new Potentia satellites. The rest, except the remainder of the Trio bridge crew, you will go work on your pre-assigned tasks to get a full maintenance cycle started on the city." ordered Captain Helia.
Then, Captain Helia, Ayiana, Harry, Rodney, and Helia's First Officer, Communications Officer, and Operations Officer all head off to the bridge.
...
Once they entered the bridge all the lights came on and the consoles lit up.
Captain Helia walked over to the middle of the command deck and mentally willed the Security Console to raise up out of the floor, placed her palm on it and assumed command of the city.
At that point, an AI avatar appeared in hologram form next to her.
"Hello Atlantis, it is good to be home." said Captain Helia.
"Welcome Home Captain Helia." said Atlantis.
"Did you not receive the latest orders that the city was being abandoned and that you were to return to Earth to rendezvous with the rest of the survivors?" asked Atlantis.
"I did." answered Captain Helia. Then she proceeded to give Atlantis the digest version of what happened.
"So, we were rescued by this group of descendants from the survivors that went to Earth, for them and for you it has been about 10,000 years. For me and my crew it seems only several years have passed by. So, here we are. I don't even really know what we are going to do next. The first order of business was to find out if the city survived and restore power. At the moment we only have partial power restored, we are making plans at this moment to create three more Potentia to bring you back to full power." said Captain Helia.
"Very well Captain Helia. As the highest ranking surviving flag officer of Atlantis you are hereby granted full military and governing powers of Atlantis and are hereby appointed as High Councilor of Atlantis." announced Atlantis.
"Wow. Congratulations Captain Helia. That sounded very official." said Hermione.
"Yes, well you might be surprised just how much control over such things we have given to our central computer AI. But, it's all to make sure our legacy does not fall into the wrong hands." replied Captain Helia.
...
"Atlantis, run full system diagnostics and report." ordered Helia.
Atlantis reported the status of the city and then Helia said, "That is good enough. Atlantis, prepare for surfacing the city. Release docking clamps and surface the city." ordered Helia.
Seven great popping sounds and a little shaking of the city could be heard and felt by all occupants as the city for the first time in millennia released it's hold on the ocean-floor and slowly rose to the surface.
"Atlantis, lower the shields and re-raise the shields at full power."
"Shields re-cycled and are now at full power." reported Atlantis.
...
While the working teams were readying for their satellite launch, Helia directed them to the social research satellite lab.
"This room is the command center for our social research satellite network. I'm sure some satellites have fallen out of service in 10,000 years but many will still be performing their function. Now that Atlantis is surfaced, we can get some status of what is going on in the galaxy." said Helia.
"So according the Intelligence AI. First, the Wraith have allowed their race to diminish in numbers to a manageable fraction of what they once were due to the lack of large growing population for them to feed off of. They are currently in the final 50 years of their normal hibernation cycle. Records indicate that they rarely send cruisers and scout ships out on patrol anymore due to lack of any known enemies. It appears we should go undetected by them for some time if we keep a low profile." continued Helia.
"Second, is the Asurans. The Asurans are a race of human form replicator's that defied their original programming as weapons to fight the Wraith and learned to adapt and take their own path. They are named after the planet Asura where we built the lab to create them. As the replicator's evolved they decided to take human form in imitation of us, their creators. But they were filled with a rage and aggression they could not understand. So they asked our leaders to remove their aggression programming. But we refused because they were designed with base codes that prevent them from harming one of us; because we were so desperate to find a weapon to destroy the Wraith. When we concluded that the Asurans would not be the weapon we sought, we sent a fleet of Aurora-class battleships to Asuras, wiping out the laboratory and the nanites, and deleted all references to the project from their database, save for Asuras' Stargate address. However, some of the nanites survived, and began to replicate again which resulted in their Second Birth. According to the Intelligence AI, after we lost the war and returned to the Milky Way galaxy, the Asurans began to attack the Wraith but, that war ended in a stalemate with neither side able to best the other. Satellite imagery indicates that the Asuran's have built quite a world for themselves on Asura, imitating us in every way possible apparently, including many city-ships and their own version of Aurora class Battleships." continued Helia.
"Thirdly, their are a number, apparently dozens of sparsely populated primitive human worlds spread throughout the galaxy. These appear to be remnants of what is left after the Wraith war from the seeding of human life our people did in this galaxy millions of years ago." continued Helia.
"For now, especially since Atlantis is not fully operational yet. I recommend we keep all of this on the back-burner. If the Wraith are hibernating for another 50 years. We can take up to 50 years to figure out how we can put an end to them. That will be one of our missions here. For the Asurans, the last word was that right after their re-birth they cut off all relations with Atlantis. Even though they had not defeated their base code preventing them from harming us, they let their hatred of us for what we tried to do be known. At this point I think it is safest to assume they are another terrible enemy now. Frankly, as much as I want to take the war back to the Wraith and even to finish with the Asurans someday; we are far too outnumbered and outgunned to even think about it, even with a fully restored Atlantis. There just are not enough of us left." concluded Helia.
"Then what will you do?" asked Ayiana.
"I don't know. I'll need to think about it. I'll need to speak to the rest of my crew and see what they think about it." replied Helia.
"Part of me just wants to honor our last orders and return to Earth as originally planned. In this case, and under these circumstances I would think that would mean returning to Earth-with Atlantis. I just don't know if that is the right thing to do at this point in time. We are not supposed to get that directly involved with other primitive human civilizations. No offense, but other than your small band of Volans, the major population of Earth is not ready to be uplifted to our level yet and doing so would run straight against our people's policy of non-interference that has stood for 10's of millions of years. I think the way you described how you are gradually uplifting them, enough to defend themselves against the class of enemy that is upon them, after they've proven themselves worthy-is right. But Atlantis is not needed for that. Let me think about it for a while." concluded Helia.