Author's Notes: Hi guys. Been too long since updates. Here is the next chapter. Thanks to Syphon01 for pointing out that a Viper / Raptor can fit through a Stargate (according to his/her calculations). I will be using that fact in the future.

Been a long time since updates… some stories that I read that are complex and have a long time between updates are a bit hard to follow, so I offer a brief summary below. Let me know if you like this approach and I'll do it every chapter… if not, I wont.

Summary /

- Pegasus Fleet got flung across the galaxy by the Nox, found a Stargate and sent a delegation to Earth/Colonies to provide an update. Got attacked by Ba'al's ships. Ba'al learns of Colonies and decides that 12 industrialised worlds will make very good slave planets.

- Bra'tac comes through the gate. Reveals that Apophis is still alive. Apophis wants revenge on Teal'c by taking his son. However Teal'c's son was taken and now lives on the Colonies. Teal'c visiting.

- Cater & Sasha Alexandria were on P3J-989/Alania. Had to flee off-world with experimental holo-band-Stargate interface after a Goa'uld invasion began. Got transported to Kobol by unknown means and experienced memories of Apollo, Lord of Kobol, stored in databanks of Lord of Kobol resurrection facilities. Experienced strange, dream-like, sequence with a river in between Apollo dying & being resurrected. Occurring sporadically in Lords of Kobol.

- Combined SGC/Colonial forces attempted to jump to Alania in Raptor squadron to rescue trapped Earth/Colonial forces on Alania. Got their ass handed to them by death gliders / Ha'tak in orbit.

- Colonial fleet dispatched to find Stargates that are not locked (only able to dial earth) like the one found on Caprica. Fleet returns with Stargates and Colonies set up their own Stargate facility inside an asteroid. Cylon sabotage results in the facility exploding, taking most of Colonial leadership with it. Director Tynall (Intelligence Division) is acting Commander in Chief until lines of succession can be determined and finalised and a new President declared.

End Summary /

CHAPTER 21

There was no real way to describe it. She felt sheer terror which was soon replaced by panic only to be replaced by terror again. Moments that she knew could be measured in fractions of a second, but seemed like minutes or more elapsed and the feeling began to pass. More and more astutely she knew that it had been a dream and now she was awaking. Feeling began to return to her body and her senses began to detect external stimuli. She could hear the chirping of the birds and feel a rough substance underneath her back. As her consciousness returned, synapses within her mind began to make more and more connections and she knew that she was lying on sand. She could hear water nearby and somewhere inside her knew it was a river.

At last, she had stopped dreaming and was back in this place; where it was calm, warm, inviting and she was at peace. Light began to bore through her eyelids as her world turned from pitch black to a dark shade of brown. For the first time that day, a resolute command emanated through her mind; Wake Up. As soon as that command had been given her eyes opened, her body moved and what last vestiges of consciousness that had eluded her returned. Her eyes opened and she saw blue sky, causing her to instantly squint. She slowly and groggily sat up and looked around. She was back; on the sand deposit beside the river. This was her home. She was intimately familiar with this place and had had many experiences here, although she could not recall any specifics at that direct moment.

Natasha Higgins stood up and took in the surrounding area. In her mind, the place was just as she remembered. If she took the time to analyse her thoughts a bit more though she would realise that it wasn't just as she remembered, because she could not remember the location specifically. Instead her mind had been bypassed with the sense that this place was familiar and warm, even though the direct memory of it would be wiped from her mind as soon as she left. She could not remember the sand deposit that she now found herself on, but she knew that she'd been there before. She knew that it had been deposited by the river as it flooded and dried up over thousands of years. It felt as if she had been there to witness each of those events since the beginning of time. Somewhere deep in her mind she knew that such feelings could not be true and did not make any logical sense, but those connections would never be made at this place.

Natasha heard something. It was a voice separate to hers, calling out her name. She turned around trying to find the source but could not see anyone.

"Natasha," she heard faintly again, as if delivered on the wind. She then saw something out of the corner of her eye – movement on the opposite bank of the river. As she looked closer she could see multiple figures moving and emerging onto the sand bar on the other side. They were holding out their arms as if welcoming her. Natasha felt compelled to go towards them. Slowly she took a few steps towards the water.

As soon as her foot touched the water the same feelings of panic, confusion and terror returned. In an instant she had gone from being warm and dry on the bank of the river, to being immersed underwater and unable to breathe. Something must have happened, or she must have missing memories. She knew that she was thrashing around, her limbs flailing underneath the river. She could not orientate herself and could not detect which way was up, towards oxygen and towards life. Then one of her limbs penetrated the water's surface and she could feel cool air against her skin. She then recognised that the area beneath her was solid and had purchase. She thrust her body out of the water, opened her eyes and took in a large mouthful of air. There was someone there, helping to pull her out. They were speaking to her in a soothing manner. It was not working. There was something wrong. She was no longer in the same place; that inner peace that she had felt at the river was gone; and so was the river. It ached her soul to be away from that place. It ached further to be in this sterile, cold and barren room. The room was cavernous, with cold, dark grey steel comprising its walls, floor and ceiling. She was utterly lost and did not want to be in this place.

Then a connection was made. This place seemed to be less and less unbearable. In what seemed to be an eternity within herself, the memory and feelings of the river were erased and her mind forgot the experience. New memories and pre-determined thought processes, based on historical experiences that she could specifically remember, activated within her brain. This was her identity. It coursed through her brain, infectious with its presence and erasing everything else. Within moments she had calmed and was herself. Natasha Higgins, otherwise known as one of the Cylon Model Number Three.

"What happened Natasha," she heard from her side. She turned to see John Cavil and another of her line staring down at her as she lay immersed in the translucent gel of the Cylon Resurrection Tank. Instantly Natasha remembered the asteroid, Ulant Atani, the Colonial Stargate Program, and her improvised plan to damage the Colonials. As these memories flooded her mind, she knew that it was standard practice to ask any resurrected Cylon what had happened. Even the presence of that question caused an involuntary response to complete the memory transfer and cement the latest events into the new mind that she now found herself within.

"It was amazing. I did good," she replied after a few moments, "I destroyed the Colonials new base. The President and his aides were all there."

"Ahh, I see. It was you who did that," Cavil responded.

"You know. How do you know?" Natasha replied.

"It's been three days my dear. The radiation put out in the explosion caused some, irregularities, in your code. It took us a while to recompile your signature," Cavil responded. Her mind raced. Of course, the Stargate element she had laced the superstructure of the facility with must have caused some interruption in her download signal.

"Then have we attacked? I did it so we could move the timeframe for the attack forward. With their leadership taken out, they will be in disarray. We can maximise our attack forces' effectiveness," Natasha said.

"Unfortunately you did not share your plan with the rest of us sister. We were not ready, nor expecting, your attack," the other Three model said.

"Besides. Your actions have had the opposite effect. The Colonial Fleet is on full readiness. Any attack now would be counter-productive," the Cavil said.

"Then I failed," Natasha responded.

"No. You need to tell us everything you learned about this Stargate of theirs," Cavil replied.

One Day Later – Battlestar Pegasus

Admiral Cain was walking through a wrecked ship, both structurally and in spirit. Everywhere she looked there were people who had dead eyes, who had been pushed past their limits and were still grasping at whatever sanity they had left. Most were from the destroyed Battlestar Chryasor. Cain could understand their confusion. In the span of a few months they had gone from normal duty rotations to being thrown across the galaxy to face aliens with untold power and technology. This technology had destroyed several decks with just one hit. This was a time of war and Cain expected her crew to hold it together, despite the extraordinary circumstances that they were in. Therefore Cain could expect no less of herself. That was why she kept her gaze level and walked with a confident stride through the hallways amongst the wounded and those without quarters. She briefly paused to acknowledge those who had time to stop and salute her through the hallways.

However Cain was not unaccompanied. She had several people hovering around her, providing the latest status updates. The most important of these people for the time being was Lieutenant Hable who was one of the surviving members of the Agronomics department.

"… so not only did we lose up to 80% of our oxygen recycling capacity, but since agronomics was the central hub of the gas distribution system across the ship, most of our reserves were lost when agronomics was hit. The gas was literally sucked from the distribution network once the central ventilation system was lost and the pipework was exposed to vaccum," he explained to Cain as they walked through the hallways.

"Cut to the chase Lieutenant," Cain said to him. "When do we need to top up our oxygen reserves?"

"I believe with the current loads of excess personnel on-board, we will have to perform atmospheric skimming within 48 hours to top up our reserves Admiral. And that's a maximum. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned," Hable replied. That was not what Cain wanted to hear.

"Liaise with Astronomy and get them to start finding us a planet with a suitable atmosphere. Get them to contact CIC to make any decisions if necessary. Dismissed," Cain ordered Hable. Cain could see the door to the flight deck in front of her and ordered the rest of her entourage to leave her be. This was to be a relatively private conversation.

The flight pod was ordered chaos, as to be expected. Cain began to walk down to the far end of the flight deck. It was cordoned off with high-viz tape. Within the cordoned off section sat the Cylon Raider that had been captured from the debris field between the Cylon forces that had accompanied the Colonials to this side of the galaxy, and a Goa'uld mothership. Standing within the cordoned off area was the ship's Chief Medical Officer, several engineers as well as the Chief of the Deck.

"Admiral," the Chief of the Deck acknowledged. Cain nodded in response as she ducked under the tape cordoning off the area.

"Lets get started shall we… I would like to thank you for all coming here and taking time out of what many of you see to be more important tasks given recent events. As you know the Cylons fired on us before we were transported to this side of the galaxy. This indicates that they're willing to begin another conflict between us. We need intel on their capabilities to report back to high command when we find another Stargate. Although its not a priority for this ship or this fleet, it is a priority for the Twelve Colonies as a whole that we find out as much as we can about any Cylon advancements," Cain explained. "What have you found doctor?" Cain asked.

"It's like something from a fiction story Admiral. As you know the insides of the ship are biological. From what we can tell, these biological elements, or organs as we know them, are integrated into mechanical components and computer systems. Its almost like the ship is a hybrid of an organically grown being, and a computer system sir," the ships chief doctor responded quite enthusiastically.

"What does that mean for us?" Cain responded, failing to see what was making the doctor so excited.

"It means that the Raider is essentially an animal, whose habitat is space, and whose sole purpose is to fight Vipers and Battlestars. It will be a dangerous for our Viper pilots to go up against something that makes its home in space, sir," the Chief of the deck responded. Cain nodded in response.

"What about its armament and capabilities. Is it faster or more manoeuvrable than our Vipers?" Cain asked.

"From what we can tell, our Viper Mark Sevens should be faster. Manoeuvrability should be fairly equal if both ships are at similar velocities," the Chief responded.

"It carries a small fuel tank though. This leads to the conclusion that they're extremely fuel efficient sir," one of the engineers added.

"This Raider is armed with only a handful of missiles. However it seems to be capable of being armed with up to ten missiles at any one time, given the compact nature of the missiles that we removed from this one," the Chief added while pointing to a machinery cart alongside the Raider holding missiles, small by Colonial standards. "Doctor Kielbottom has an interesting theory on the firing mechanism though," the Chief added.

"Yes. The missiles are housed in the forward wings of the Raider. Internally though, these are tough muscle with a hell of a lot of nerves. It appears that the missiles are housed within a large vein like structure that can contract and expand in different areas to push the missiles towards a separate compartment that can be opened to zero oxygen and zero gravity. Judging by the size of the muscles, this could essentially make the Raider deploy all of its payload very quickly and efficiently," the doctor explained.

There were a few moments of silence from all of the engineers, the Chief and the ships head Doctor.

"Well, anything else?" Cain asked.

"I'm sorry sir, but that's about all we can tell. Everything else about the ship is too alien to us. We need to get this back to the Colonies and get some real experts to have a look at it," the Chief responded. Cain thought for a few moments. The ship looked like it might fit through a gate, but she couldn't be sure. Even if it did, after their last encounter, Cain did not want to spend too much time in orbit of a planet with a Stargate. The probabilities of encountering another Goa'uld mothership were just too high, and it would take a while to transport the Raider down to a planet and through the Stargate.

"Measure up the ship and see if it will fit through a Stargate," Cain ordered regardless. It would be beneficial to know that information if the other option in her mind was unachievable.

What they really needed was safe access to a Stargate. So far they hadn't had that. All the planets that they had jumped to with a Stargate had a sizeable Jaffa population, with orbiting or landed Goa'uld motherships at the planet. Safe access to a Stargate would only come if they had one on-board themselves. From the report that Cain had received so far, and her journeys around the ship, they needed one soon. They had too many wounded to deal with between the two Battlestars that they needed to offload.

Cain had an idea on how to take a Stargate for themselves, even on a hostile world. She just needed to have a chat with some of the tactical officers to see if it was even possible and to work out a few nuts and bolts in her plan.

"Dismissed. Return to your active duties. I'll see about getting us access to some more expertise," Cain said.

Stargate Command – Earth

Upon hearing that the Colonies' own Stargate Facility had exploded, taking most of the senior leadership with them, Earth had unilaterally offered their support in whatever they could. However there was not much that they could do. Everyone from the SGC who knew of the event knew that it was just a transitionary time for the Colonials. New leaders would be put in place, and the investigation into the cause of the explosion would be ongoing for months, if not years, to come. There was not much that an outside party could offer up in support, especially to a civilisation as diverse and with the resource base of the Colonies.

Instead the most useful thing that they could do was to carry on as normal. This resulted in a strategy session by the survivors of the mission to P3J-989 or Alania. There were considerable Colonial forces stranded on the now Goa'uld occupied planet, and valuable Earth assets there was well. This included Samantha Carter, one of the best minds that the SGC had access to regarding alien and Earth technologies. The planning session consisted of Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, George Hammond, Aerisis, one of the pilots from the Raptor mission, Kara Thrace, several Colonial Marine commanders as well as Mater Bra'tac.

So far, every probe that had been sent through the Stargate had been instantly destroyed. However one had been able to send back a few seconds of valuable imagery which showed the forces that the Goa'uld had guarding the Stargate. It was not good. There were a few dozen Jaffa surrounding the gate, some out in the open, several others were stationed behind barricades that they had erected. Also visible in the image on the projector screen in front of them were several large Jaffa staff cannon turrents aimed at the Stargate.

All parties in the room agreed that it would be a slaughter for any force sent through the Stargate to try and breach the Jaffa defences. Likewise the Raptor mission that they had sent from the nearby planet P3J-562 had failed, being intercepted by Goa'uld fighters launched from motherships in orbit. They were now searching for other possibilities to mount a rescue mission to the planet.

"… if you can get the Gate to somewhere that's open. I can fly a Viper through the gate at high speed, and level the surrounding area. The Jaffa wont even know what hit them," the pilot that Jack O'Neill had had during the Raptor Mission, Starbuck, said.

"We cannot get a Viper to the second Stargate at Area 51 Captain. It would have to be broken down into parts on your side of the gate, transported through, and then re-assembled at Area 51," Hammond responded.

"Yeah, that's no problem," Thrace responded.

"You're forgetting that once you make the initial attack, death gliders will be onto us within minutes," Jack responded. "They'll come down from their motherships in orbit and blow us all away."

"Well then we send a few Vipers," Thrace responded.

"And they'll send more Death Gliders," Jack replied. "What we need is an orbital presence to keep the Ha'tak's occupied while we mount a rescue mission."

"And we can't do that. Alania is just too far from the Colonies to mount any such mission," Aerisis replied to Jack. By now the conversation was getting fairly heated, as they'd all covered this ground before. To Daniel it seemed as if they were going around in circles.

"Wait!" Daniel exclaimed as he remembered something that happened earlier in the day. Everyone simmered down and looked at him expectantly. He got up and moved over towards the transparent Star Chart that they had in the SGC's conference room. It showed the location of Earth and the Colonies within the context of the wider galaxy. Daniel circled the location of P3J-989 or Alania. He then circled another location not too far from the planet. "That team from Pegasus that reported in and said that they'd been flung across the galaxy. Isn't this the location where they said they were?" Daniel said while pointing to the second location he circled on the star chart. He was referring to the delegation that had come through the Stargate from the Pegasus the day before. They had referred the team through to the Colonies so that they could directly report to their superiors. However they had no luck in re-establishing contact with the Pegasus. It had appeared that the ship had moved from orbit of the planet that they had originally sent their delegation from.

The location that Pegasus had reported from had attracted the attention of Aerisis, who had now stood up and moved from the conference table to have a closer look at the star chart that Daniel was looking at. He looked at the starchart and did some rough calculations in his head.

"That location is only twenty to thirty jumps away from Alania. If we could contact the Pegasus fleet and re-direct them there, we would be able to coordinate a combined orbital and Stargate attack on the planet," Aerisis exclaimed. That was exactly what Daniel had been aiming for when he had placed the locations on the starchart.

"The problem is going to be contacting the Pegasus. We have no idea what happened to her, and if the fleet moved, where they moved to," one of the Colonial technicians said.

"We'll just have to dial up all the Stargates in the area and try to make contact with communications," Hammond responded.

Jack was finally feeling like they were making progress towards this situation now. He wanted his team back together. Teal'c was on his way back from the Colonies with Ry'ac. He had been on Tauron when the Colonial Stargate Command had exploded. The aftermath was keeping all non-priority inter-planetary traffic at a standstill. However apparently Teal'c was priority traffic and the team at the Caprica gate facility had advised them several hours ago that Teal'c was on his way. If they could just pull this off, they would have Carter back and SG1 would be whole again.

Kobol

What Jack O'Neill and anyone from Earth and the Colonies did not know was that Carter was not on P3J-989. She was stranded on the surface of Kobol with Sasha Alexandria. They had awoken from the best sleep they had been able to get for a few days now. The quarters that they had found had been wondrous, and Carter swore that the bed she had slept on had been the most comfortable yet.

The day before they had found what appeared to be damaged memory banks of some of the Lords of Kobol. From what Carter had seen, these Lords of Kobol appeared to be a very advanced race when they were in their prime and were capable of capturing and downloading their consciousness into a new body upon death. It was true immortality, something that almost everyone yearned for. What concerned Cater were the pieces that were missing. These beings were now extinct. What had happened to them to cause them to cease to exist in the universe? They were just some of the questions that Carter would have to ponder another day. At the moment their most pressing concern was finding a power source to active at the Stargate and get themselves home.

Carter and Sasha left the quarters that they had discovered and began their search again. Most of the building was without power, so despite it being day time, they were searching the dark hallways with torches. It was not long before Carter stopped in her tracks. She was looking at writing of the Lords of Kobol engraved on the wall of the hallway containing their quarters.

"Sasha," she exclaimed while reaching over and prodding her.

"What?" Sasha responded while turning to look at what Carter's torch beam was pointing at. It was simple enough. It was writing on the wall that gave directions, much like a shopping centre index. That was to be expected. What Carter did not anticipate was that she could read it, word for word.

"Can you read that like I can?" Carter asked her.

"Yes I can… but how?" Sasha replied. Only half of Carter's mind was listening to Sasha, the other half was concentrating on reading the directions on the sign. There were some interesting things on that list, such as Resurrection Hub; Atrium; Quarters; Weapons Store; Research and Development; Ship Controls.

"It must be from the memories we looked at yesterday. They must have been more than recordings. They must have downloaded some information into our heads," Carter responded.

"It's possible. Logically it's the next step that we'd look at taking with the holo-band technology once we got the machine interface up and running," Sasha responded. It was only then that Carter noticed something else as well. She had understood Sasha's natural speech and didn't have to wait for it to come out again through the Colonial translator attached to her shoulder.

"Sasha, I can understand you," Carter responded.

"What. Wait, I can understand you as well," Sasha responded while reaching over and turning her translator off. "Wait, do you see that?" Sasha said, her attention re-diverted to the sign.

"No, what's that," Carter responded. Sasha waved her torch around at the list of directions.

"About three quarters of the way down. See that sign there. The one that says 'Stargate Control Room'?"

Carter saw it as soon as Sasha said it. Instantly, their chances of getting home had increased exponentially.

Colonial Intelligence Division

Director Tynall had slept for about three hours in the last three days. He was dealing with crisis after crisis after the explosion of the asteroid Ulant Atani. People were scared and most thought that the Cylons wre returning and had launched a pre-emptive strike against a secret Colonial facility. The problem was that there was not much that Tynall could do to dispute that. A secret facility had exploded, and he could not say what it was for, only that it was classified. That got all of the conspiracy theorists that called themselves newscasters going, which only made the situation far, far worse. The worst yet was a video transmission from one of the Colonies' most wanted, Tom Zarek, claiming that the entire Colonial Government was incapable and was going to launch us all into annihilation at the hands of the Cylons by provocation.

Currently there were hundreds of advisors and analysts doing what they could to speed up the plans that the recently departed President Adar had made to reveal the existence of the Stargate and Earth to the public. However Tynall doubted that the revelation would do much to calm the public across all Twelve Worlds. To them it would look like the government were wholly incompetent; a few months after finding out about the situation in the wider galaxy, and the first facility dedicated to exploring this new frontier explodes, taking most of the heads of power with it. It would probably lead to a civil uprising, especially with people like Tom Zarek nurturing and encouraging these thoughts through the public sphere.

"Sir, I have the team from Pegasus waiting for you. You said you'd be with them an hour ago," his aide said as she poked her head into the door.

"Pegasus? Is the fleet back already?" Tynall queried.

"No sir. I sent you a vmail updating you on the situation yesterday. They have sent a delegation through Earth's Stargate to give you a vital update," his aide responded. "The team insists that its quite urgent."

"Very well. Where are they?" he asked.

"Meeting room seven," his aide replied. Tynall got up from behind his desk and made his way down the hall to meet the officers from the Pegasus.

After hearing their story, Tynall's day had gone from bad to worse. The Pegasus had been fired upon by Cylons before being thrown across the galaxy by an unknown alien race with some kind of cryptic warning. From what they had been able to tell, the Cylon forces that had engaged them had also been flung to the same location of space. The officers from Pegasus were very clear – the Cylons had fired first. To Tynall, this signalled their intention of war. It was then his choice, as Acting Commander in Chief of the Colonial Fleet, what response to make next. One that he could not make lightly.

However there were two important facts that Tynall, or any Colonial citizen, did not know. The first was that the Cylons had found something on Planet Delta, something Kobolian in origin, that had pointed them in the same direction that the Pegasus Fleet had been moving – apparently towards one of the occupied worlds of these Nox. What the Cylons had found on Planet Delta had been so ground-breaking to their understanding of the universe, that they could not allow the Colonials to access this, or more, on the system that they had both emerged into and began their firefight. It was not a declaration of war that the Cylons made by firing on the Colonial Fleet. It was an act of deterrence; to protect humanity from discovering what the Cylons had.

The second fact to elude Tynall was that in that very hour, dozens of cloaked Goa'uld cargo ships entered hyperspace. They were a reconissance force for the Goa'uld Ba'al. The ships had been cloaked in Colonial space for the last six hours collecting information. The cargo ships were all leaving the Colonial system to report back to the Goa'uld invasion fleet that was currently inbound, and not more than a day away.

/

Authors Notes: As Just a Crazy-Man said in the reviews "The war comes to the Colonies"… next chapter!