Chapter 24

Location: Kobol, City Ship Olympus

Date: July 27, 2014

Time: 0220 Hours

The painful silence of the endless halls was wearing Corporal Heather Dean's nerves raw. Every so often a loud thunder clap would make her jump in fright and she'd duck down behind the nearest piece of cover. She knew that she wasn't alone. One didn't need to be a military expert or psychological expert to figure that out. She'd escaped from her captors, whether they be rogues, Earth, or someone else entirely she didn't care. But she knew for sure that she was being pursued, she'd seen one person already trailing her. That alone had put her on an edge she hadn't been able to relinquish since seeing the figure. That figure, she tried to make herself believe that it hadn't seen her, but she knew that was unlikely.

So she had kept her head on a swivel, her ears in tuned to every little noise, and all of that had kept her safe, for now. But she knew that she'd need a rest, and an open room where she saw a few couches just beckoned to her. After checking around, listening to nothing but her own breathing, the pitter patter of rain, and the occasional thunder, and she ducked inside. Once there she found a single couch against the wall near the door so she could make it out quickly if needed. Heather laid her head back against the couch, letting her legs sprawl forward, stretching them out a bit. She was in near complete darkness save for a few lights on a small column in the center of the room that served as an emergency light. The couch was covered in dust that clung to her in the humid conditions, annoying her slightly. She didn't allow herself to get too comfortable, lest she fall asleep or let her guard down. She instinctively reached into her pocket for a picture of her family as a way of comforting herself. But she was angered by the missing picture and let out an exasperated breath through her nostrils. It was just a simple photograph of her with her parents and little brother right after she'd graduated basic training, what harm could it really do? She made a note that if things settled down she would ask to have it and other personal items of hers returned to her. But first things first, she needed a way out.

"Okay, enough aimless wandering," she whispered to herself, "I need a plan out of here to link up with the rest of the outfit. I'm in a city, a city of skyscrapers, so first I need to get to ground level. From there I have to establish a direction of travel to link up with base."

As she said that several obstacles made themselves clear. She had no idea where the base was in relation to anything on this planet, and she was in a similar predicament with her own current location. Trying to piece together a direction of travel from an unknown point to an unknown point made no sense whatsoever. She shook her head at the obstacles, and decided on a much more dangerous plan of action.

"I need a map, supplies, equipment, and a weapon but the only place to get one of those is from the people who are hunting me. I'm in no position to seek out a superior enemy, especially without a weapon," she rubbed her hands over her eyes, absolutely infuriated with her situation and how helpless she seemed to be affect change, "Dammit I'm a Marine, I can do this, I can do this."

She steeled her resolve with that declarative statement to herself, balling her hands into fists and stood up, ignoring the protests of her ankles and knees. She went to the entrance of the room, looked around and went back the way she came, hoping to lure someone into an ambush so she might be able to better her situation by acquiring a weapon, a map, or even a radio to listen in on the pursuit and other matters that might prove useful.

But watching her from a discreet distance was her hunter, Ronon Dex. He knew from watching the Colonials earlier that they were some elite troops by their mannerisms, the way they moved, the way they held their weapons, and just by the way the Colonials seemed to have mirrored the Taur'i he had fought alongside for so many years. He wasn't about to let her get away, there was no rush, no need to hurry to make a mistake. So like any good hunter, he waited and watched, looking for a weakness to exploit that would place him in perfect position to make the final move.

"Alright, let's make this interesting," Ronon whispered, seeing the look in her eye from the shadows as she reemerged from a room she'd used to reconnoiter.

He walked forward, following her and keeping her life sign reading within range of the life signs detector he held and used to keep tabs on her. He'd noted that she moved with a grim cautious precision, listening into every detail she could hear, keying in on all her senses. She did not want to be caught off guard. So for Ronon he knew that he would have to reach into his bag of tricks to get this done quickly and cleanly without harming her, at least not permanently. However, contrary to what Sheppard had thought, sending him to hunt her down, he didn't like it one bit. It reminded him too much of his time as a Runner. He'd always wondered what it was like for the Wraith to have all the advantages in a situation like this, to see their quarry running for their lives across the galaxy. It was something he didn't want to put anyone else into, but now, he was doing it to this Colonial. He knew it was necessary and in the act of the hunt he took a certain pleasure in it. For anything like this you have to in order to be good at it, but after the fact he knew he wasn't going to like doing it. But he had orders, and besides, a bit of his ego was on the line.

Kobol, Colonial Base Camp

The Colonial operating base had gone from a grouping of tents and a ring of foxholes to a fortified base camp of solid metal structures and sandbag reinforced pillboxes and mortar pits. Their offworld units had been further strengthened with an additional platoon of Colonial Marines with heavy machine guns, mortars, barbed wire, and mines.

The Colonial base stretched out encompassing the area around the Stargate for thirty meters in all directions. Large and small metal buildings propped up off the ground to keep level numbered well over a dozen. Each of them was meticulously camouflaged with webbed netting and the entrances to many were bordered by sandbags. In the center of the compound were a half dozen mortar pits with the mainstay of Colonial mortars, the 85 millimeter Heavy Mortar occupying the six foot deep pits. Some of the perimeter had been bordered with barbed wire fence coming up to thigh level for security with bells hanging off of the wire to alert the sentries if the wire was being tampered with. The large party sent through the ring initially was now doubled in size, and tripled the firepower and had an excellent piece of real estate to boot. Their toehold on Kobol had by now turned into a foothold, and to them, it would take an army to dislodge them from their spot on the planet. However, the additional garrison was not limited to military personnel.

A dozen civilians had come through as well wearing black BDU's and armed with a single pistol for protection. Their task was to glean as much information from what had been found as possible. Every one of them immediately began complaining about the wet and cold conditions they were faced with along with the poor facilities they had been forced to make do with. All they had was a twenty meter by ten meter semi portable structure for a lab/barracks. There was little to no heating provided in the form of a tiny space heater, and it leaked in one corner near their beds. However, the military personnel cared very little, and did even less to alleviate their discomforts.

That's because to the military personnel there were bigger fish to fry, orders had come through for a patch of forest to be leveled to make room for a landing pad for Raptors to be brought through so they would be able to operate out of Kobol. They had an urgent need for aircraft, the small, light-weight UAV's they currently operated weren't up to the task of flying through the major storm currently keeping all Colonial eyes in the sky grounded as well as bringing their visibility down to barely ten yards in front of them. The combination of wind, rain, and night made their sentries as jumpy as they were miserable as they looked through the slits of their forward concealed pillboxes. They had some more advanced motion sensors and cameras that had come through but the storm had made putting them up impossible. All of this additional security had stemmed from the disappearance of one of their troops after finding someone watching them. But since that incident nothing had happened. Their patrols had searched out as far as they could but had found nothing, and with the oncoming storm they were pulled back to avoid a similar incident in the middle of a stormy night.

Colonel Black, the CO of the offworld base and everyone in it, had been going over the video of what Corporal Dean's helmet camera had captured shortly before she disappeared. He'd gotten the footage back from Command shortly after sending the helmet back for recovery. What he had seen made him furious, they weren't aliens that much was certain, they were human. Their equipment was nearly identical to their own, their uniforms matched up with what the Earthers had been seen to wear on the one occasion when they had been in battle ready condition. But the way in which they had gotten away was something that had his mind turning in circles trying to deal with that kind of tactical advantage. But technological superiority hadn't stopped him before, and this would just be the latest fight against the odds. It wasn't exactly a surprise to him that his orders now reflected that same consensus that seemed to be prevailing in the higher ups of the Colonial military. Recover Corporal Dean no matter the obstacles, that seemed simple enough, and that was good as soldiers like himself preferred simple. And with a trio of Raptors disassembled and a team of engineers waiting to get them through to build that landing pad he was eager to get it done.

At the moment he was in his headquarters in the center of the compound, going over a map of what had been explored by the UAV's and his own patrols before they were forced to return to base by the raging storm. He'd managed to have a handful of UAV's airborne for an hour or two and had gotten some decent contours of the surrounding landscape. But the really detailed images were still being processed and gone over for anything strange or unnatural, and that was his only hope at the moment for finding Corporal Dean and more importantly the Earthers who took her and their base of operations.

"Colonel, we may have something here," one of the technicians in charge of the UAV's called out from his console going over footage from his flight.

"It had better be good soldier," the officer responded, walking over.

"I think so sir," the man responded as Colonel Black stood behind him, "We never noticed it before because of the need for speed and fact it was mostly masked in the approaching storm. But once we started really going over it in detail we saw this."

The screen started to loop for quick three second intervals, showing the green foggy landscape and the ominous wall of dark gray clouds rolling in towards the UAV. But off in the very farthest distance of the storm a small glint was caught. It was at first nearly unnoticeable, it was so brief. But once the video looped for long enough Colonel Black could definitely see it wasn't a stray bolt of lightning.

"There's something man made out there," Colonel Black stated grimly, looking at it loop, "Did you get any closer during your sweep?"

"Negative Colonel, we were ordered to land before we could get to our next leg," the technician responded.

"Hmm…can you plot the direction of that on the map?"

"Yes sir, but I can't give you an affirmative distance, the storm blocked any real view."

"Plot it now."

The man got up, looking back at the screen for the coordinates of the UAV at the time it took the video and its camera's angle. With that information he took a red pen and a straight edge and traced a red line from a point on the map and then all the way out for several miles on the map. His line went to the edge of the paper's edge just to be safe and once he was done he got a nod and a wave to return to his post. Colonel Black rubbed his chin out of habit as he considered his options, he now had a lead. Whether or not it was to his missing Marine, or something else entirely he was going to bust some asses until he knew what that thing was. So he picked up his field phone hanging on the wall next to him and dialed up the building that was built around the dialing device for protection.

"Sergeant Drake speaking," the phone crackled.

"Colonel Black," he said, sensing the NCO on the other end tense up.

"Yes sir."

"Dial home."

"Yes sir," the man said, "Sir if I may, why are we dialing back so soon? We already checked in with command thirty minutes ago."

"We've got a lead on our missing Marine."

"Yes sir," the Sergeant said, a bit of confidence ebbing out of his response.

Colonel Black looked out the window behind him, past the dripping and flapping camouflage net to see the characteristic glowing of the individual crystals on the Stargate. It wasn't something the Colonials saw every day, not yet anyway. It still held a mystical aura to it so many of them had a hard time not staring at instead of the fact of life it had become for their Earth counterparts. The crystals finally were all aligned and locked and the bright white and blue flash of the activation sequence got their attention and Colonel Black picked up the next field phone that they'd been using to communicate with command.

"Kilo Base to Ring Command come in," he stated plainly, knowing by now he was going to hear the voice of a senior member of the control room staff.

"This is Command, please authenticate identity Kilo Base."

"Authentication Aquarius five nine zero Bravo zero one," he responded on instinct.

"Identity confirmed, go ahead Kilo Base."

"Put me on with actual now. We may have something here."

"Very well, hang on."

There was a pause until the familiar voice of Admiral Queen himself came on over the headset, "Command Actual, let me hear it Kilo."

"Sir, Colonel Black," he said, stiffening at the voice of the voice of his superior officer, "We've gone over our UAV footage and may have something of use down here. We didn't notice it before because of the oncoming storm but now that we've gotten a good look at whatever it is I can say for certain that there's something man made on this planet. It could possibly the Earthers' base of operations."

"Excellent, do you have a location?"

"Negative, just a direction, the little flicker we got was concealed in the storm, but it is definitely there. I'm going to need those engineers and those Raptors out here as soon as possible. I'm not waiting for the storm to let up to clear a landing zone. We don't have time and I have no idea when this storm will let up."

"Understood Colonel, I'll get those engineers and their equipment out to you as soon as they're ready. Anything else to report?"

"Does anything else matter right now sir? I have a missing Marine and now I've got a lead on where to find her and those responsible."

"I understand, you'll have your engineers in less than two hours. Command out."

The connection terminated right there and the gate stayed lit for a few moments before it plunged the area back into the darkness of a raging storm. But there was soon to be another far more violent storm to come.

Terra Nova Command

Deep within the now fortified island bastion of Earth's most valuable offworld base Brigadier General Samantha Carter was still at work. She'd just welcomed a new IOA representative to the island along with a large new contingent of civilian scientists. Their specializations ranged from anything as innocent as botany to astrophysics. Most were there to take up residence in the large numbers of labs scattered around the island. There were three large observatories clustered on the west end meant to be the nerve center of the operation, there were several areas of land cleared out for botany research to be done, and even a few metal docks were set up in the bay with a few different types of boats for going out and researching the marine life on the planet. The civilian researchers had quickly taken to their jobs with gusto, as their futures as paid members of the research team depended on it.

She'd had to stay behind after O'Neill had taken the Enterprise for her maiden voyage and first ever battle against a Lucian fleet poised to potentially attack Earth or Terra Nova. She knew better than anyone what the fleet dispatched to intercept the Lucians was capable of and was entirely confident in the ability of their ships to deal with the situation. The Enterprise on her own would annihilate anything in existence if they decided to stand and fight. But not everyone could be noble now could they? And it seemed frontline combat was no longer her primary concern, the day to day routine of the research teams, weapons projects, and other matters that pertained to a base such as Terra Nova.

However General Carter hadn't concerned herself with minute matters such as a research quota for a botanist. She had actual military items on her list of things to do. First up on her list had been watching a test of the M-401 Thor Main Battle Tank and M-402 Honey Badger Infantry Fighting Vehicle, both of them planned for exclusive offworld use. She hadn't exactly been the most qualified officer to give the final report, so an Army Colonel had been the primary inspector and had been amazed at the performance of both vehicles, his only complaint had been that the US Army wouldn't be getting any of those monsters. The tank and IFV had performed beyond expectations, with their power plants and engines maxed out without a single hiccup to slow them down. The toughness of the armor was a bit more difficult to show, but a demonstration with a 155 millimeter howitzer had been enough to show that, even at point blank range the tank and IFV would still be able to roll and fight. Carter had enjoyed watching the demonstration unfold, and then moved on to her next task of the day, speaking with the IOA director on the planet about the placement for the future colony of Terra Nova.

That had gone alright for the most part. Of course the IOA man wanted more than was allotted to the future city, suburbs, farm land, space ports, and etcetera. But to Carter that seemed plain old greedy. The Archipelago that the area was to be inside of was a grouping of twenty five large islands suitable for habitation and placement for bases, factories, airfields, and the like. The military had picked out a group of seven islands for its own purposes. The largest was for training future armored units, due to the amount of space needed. The next six largest were for farmland that the colony would be allotted to grow food for itself. Then there were eight other islands destined to become thriving suburbs and small business centers. Here, there'd be homes with yards, schools, police stations, fire stations, advanced infrastructures, parks, restaurants, stores, and maybe a few malls among other things. The last of the islands were destined to become the crown jewel of the new colony, the soon to be famous, in the minds of the IOA, Terra Nova City.

This would be where the imaginations of architects would run wild. The plan was for the primary focus point of the down town section of the city to be on three different islands that were grouped closely together. The islands themselves were already tall, with high hills and steep gorges with low forest covered mountains that came close to the beaches. The concept drawings had shown that there would be anywhere from twenty to fifty skyscrapers, depending on the estimated population and business allure of the colony, breaching the seven hundred meter mark with another sixty to a hundred below that amazing height. The architects and engineers stated that there would be enclosed footpaths lined with gardens connecting the buildings hundreds of meters above the foundations, landing pads for aircraft the size of an Osprey among the buildings, and everything about those buildings would leave a negative carbon footprint. Or so it was claimed. Carter, hated to admit it, but it was all very cool. The technology they had at their disposal was simply unbelievable, and the things they would be able to build would match it step for step. At ground level there would be parks, concourses, food courts, parking garages, an advanced highway system that would span all across the archipelago to reach all of the islands, including the military controlled islands. A series of docks would provide ferry landings for cars, trucks, and other vehicles and people commuting to the downtown area. Sea side walls would give the people and businesses places to go for relaxation, play, and commuting. General Carter even joked about having sports stadiums there for a potential first, a professional sports team not from Earth, or host a Super Bowl there. She was told right afterwards that someone had thought of that, and that a design meant to be suspended up off of the ground over the water in the city center was being considered. Of course this was where a large police department would be needed to fill in the role of law enforcement and a large skyscraper of its own was designed to hold at least a thousand officers, detectives, employees, and the equipment that an entity like that needed. The IOA had asked for, and gotten, a number of modified U-306 Ghosts to serve as the primary Terra Nova PD's aircraft of choice.

There were also a few other islands destined for their own unique purpose. One would be home of the future Terra Nova University. This school for higher education would be the primary source of all the accumulated knowledge of the adventures, tests, and lessons of Earth's time in space. There were tentative plans to have it able to house and accommodate at least eighty thousand students and more than three thousand faculty. The island it was to be located on was right by the primary basic training base's island where there would be an estimated one hundred thousand future recruits going through basic training and learning to be soldiers in an offworld detachment.

This wasn't the only school that was going to be a part of the Terra Nova colony. Another different school, an academy meant to license people to be able to properly operate space craft of all shapes and sizes was going to be right near the primary colony. It would basically become an interstellar maritime academy, such as the Federal Maritime Academy at Kings Point, New York, or the state academies in Maine, New York, California, the Great Lakes, and Texas. This academy would be critical to future exploration and civilian exploitation of space and the bounties it possessed. A new class of ship specifically designed for the purpose of training cadets to be able to learn on the job was already in the works, the STS-310 Professor Class Space Training Ship. The academy would have four of these three hundred meter long craft, along with a number of stripped down U-306 Ghosts for small shuttle craft training as well as dozens of simulators for any kind of situation training. To train and license these future cadets the Fleet itself would detach a number of officers and engineers to do the training until a large enough number of graduates are licensed and experienced enough to take the role over.

But where there's a jewel there's a jewel thief, and there were many potential enemies out there that would like nothing more than to utterly devastate the civilian population of an Earth colony. The military had made sure to make themselves clear to the IOA that the top floors of select skyscrapers have a sealed off zone for automated rail gun and missile turrets designed to be the first line of defense until boots were on the ground. A secret series of tunnels would lead to every island and provide an unobstructed and fortified highway for deploying troops, and/or evacuating civilians from danger zones. The military also placed a quota on the IOA designers to have shelters with enough room to house more people than the area was supposed to be occupied by. These shelters would be shielded from life signs detection, and be resistant to attack from anything from a Mark IX Nuclear Warhead, a plasma beam strike, plasma bolts, and biological and radiological threats. A set series of contingency plans was to be drawn up in conjunction with the IOA and military planners of the colony to ensure a fool proof plan and back-up plan to any threat. Behind Earth itself, this was going to be the most lucrative target for enemies of the Taur'i and it was going to be defended.

That's what brought Sam to the place where she was currently sitting now, Dr. Felger's lab. Here she hoped to quickly hear the status on the development into the Mk. I Battle Satellite, the future backbone of Earth and its colonies' orbital defenses.

"Well Colonel-I mean General Carter," Felger stuttered as he tried not making a mess of his already messy work station, "Sorry, I've been working with you so long I keep calling you Colonel. But you're a General now so-"

"Felger!" she snapped, "I'm not here for small talk. And I wouldn't call what our interactions have been working together. Now, your Battle Satellite. What have you gotten done?"

"Oh the Mark One! Yeah, I've made major leaps and bounds with the design. That first preemptive drawing and stats was only a rough idea that I sketched out in my spare time, so I had to basically start over from scratch because in context, none of the stuff that thing would have needed could have worked."

"So do you have a prototype design, or a design at all?" Carter groaned.

"Yes, yes I do. But uh…it doesn't look like that first design at all. It's much different because of the fact I needed to expand its internal space to make room for a Mk. III Naquadah Generator to power the weapons and shields. But the biggest change, has been the weapons themselves. Instead of plasma cannons, I put on beam weapons. I mean, so far they've worked, nothing has really been able to withstand them so don't fix what's not broken right?" he said, smiling at his realization.

"Good, when can the first prototype be constructed?" Carter asked.

"Uh…maybe a week or two? It really depends on what kind of drain on the power the beams take with the shields up at the same time. I hadn't really been able to get a solid picture of it yet. I've also had a little trouble with the rail gun and missile batteries that are going to be mounted on the satellite. The problem is ammunition. I'm not sure if the military would like the ammunition storage figures that I've calculated thus far. And a matter synthesizer would put a lot of strain on the naquadah generator."

"Do what you can. I expect to have schematics to be plugged into the shipyards within ten days," Carter said beginning to turn to leave.

"Oh General, I uh…I came up with another idea that may be able to take the middle man out of the equation with the construction of the satellites."

"I'm listening," Carter said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well, I haven't really written anything down yet, it was just an idea. Ya know I've been kinda focused."

"Felger, do you have something or not?"

"I do, of course I do. Two words, Mark Two. A super satellite that is the hub of a cluster of Mark Ones that also builds them with its own built in construction port. And because it is much larger than the Mark One it can be outfitted with more generators than it needs. Which gave me the idea while I was watching Duck Dodgers, the episode where the Martians and Earth sign the peace treaty but it's actually a ploy to get access to Earth's defense grid of shield projecting satellites. Why not have our own satellites do the same thing? Add a large shield projector to the larger satellites, position them in a grid around a planet, and activate the shield to encompass the entire planet in times of attack."

"Another satellite?" Carter asked in what Felger assumed was a condescending tone.

"I know, it's just a fantasy. Probably shouldn't have wasted your time with it."

"Once the Mark One prototype is built I want a full report on the Mark Two," Carter ordered.

"What?" Felger mumbled, not really believing what he was hearing.

"You heard me Doctor, get to work."

"Yes sir-I mean ma'am or sir…" he stuttered out, ecstatic at his recent run of luck and as Carter walked out he turned to his computer to finish his designs, "I am on a roll!"

Carter was relieved to be out of there and now made her way back to the control room where she could just sit at her office for a little while and do some of her own research while things were quiet. She'd hadn't exactly been doing much of her own independent research like she would back in the day when she didn't have nearly as much to deal with. But that didn't stop her from a side project of hers dealing with a new source of power generation, an Earth-made ZPM that would be able to link with Ancient tech as well as Earth tech and have a very similar power generation capacity to the Ancient versions. It was a lofty goal to be sure, but with a half dozen depleted ZPM's at Area 51 she'd gotten a head start and was now nearing success. But as she walked into her office she wasn't even able to pull up her work file before her intercom rang.

"General Carter, General O'Neill has made contact and is requesting to talk to you," the device droned out.

"Patch it through to me please," she said, resigning herself to the knowledge that her project would have to wait.

"Carter," the cheerful voice of O'Neill rang out, "This ship is awesome!"

"I thought you'd like it sir," she chuckled, "The Lucians get turned back?"

"No, they had their asses handed to them," O'Neill remarked, "I'll send you the contact report later but let's just say that a Super Mothership shouldn't try ramming the Enterprise as a last resort."

"You encountered a Super Mothership sir?" Carter gasped, they'd only seen two Gou'ald made craft of that size before, and it had taken quite a bit to bring them down.

"And they had a fleet of fifty ships in total to our ten. But we lost none of the cruisers, and only a half dozen of the new Banshees were knocked out of commission, but thankfully those new cockpit units kept all the pilots alive. They're all shaken up, but they're alive."

"Good sir, and have you begun to see to the clearing of the Tollan homeworld?" Carter asked.

"Well there's been a slight change in plans actually. The Tollan are alive, still arrogant as hell, but they're alive. You'd think that getting nearly wiped out would do it for their superiority complex but nope. They're hopping mad that the Asgard gifted us with this tech."

"What are you planning to do with them sir?" Carter asked.

"Well we've offered to provide food and water and help clear out the rubble from their settlements but they're afraid we'll try stealing their technology if they accept."

"They do know we don't need their technology right sir?" Carter scoffed.

"That's what I said! But they've swallowed some of their pride and we've started setting up some basic infrastructure for them to build up with. They're also demanding to speak with the Knox, but they've got no Stargate so that's a bit of a problem."

"I'll say sir."

"But beyond that the battle's over, I've detached the Odyssey, Apollo, and Aquila to return to their previous assignments."

"That's good sir, the Colonials have been going farther out into the galaxy. It looks like they'll begin seeing some more inhabited planets and who knows what'll happen when they meet a planet that decides that they don't like them."

"The Colonials are a lot like us Carter, their military is pretty damned professional, not all that technologically advanced, but they've got it where it counts for most battles. And they've upgraded one of their big boys with some new hardware you may want to look at. Something like super rail guns mounted on the bows of the ship."

"I'll take a look sir. How's the Kobol situation turning out?"

"Oh that…"

Kobol, City Ship Olympus

Corporal Dean now knew that she was being followed by someone, she had slowly begun to hear the soft footsteps from around corners and in stairwells. She'd even caught a glimpse of the person's shadow once or twice from random lightning strikes hitting the tall metal towers. She now knew for sure that she had an opportunity to ambush them and take what she could, whether it was a weapon, a map, or even a canteen to quench her thirst. She had been quite annoyed at how there were little water features within columns that just seemed to taunt her as she worked her way around, trying to find a way to better her situation.

But as she reached what looked like a wide open corridor with balconies to her right going up at least four levels, she realized this was to be the place for her to finally fight back. There was a large window that rippled with rainwater falling down its smooth surface and flashed the entire area with light blue light whenever a thunderous report from the storm made its presence known. Working quickly she found a piece of piping that was loose near a wall and pulled at it rapidly and noisily, ripping it free. She now had a weapon, in the form of a two foot two piece of two inch in metal pipe. It would have to do, now she just needed a place to hide and wait. So running up the stairs she positioned herself on the lowest balcony and waited in cover behind a large support column. The floor of the corridor wasn't bare, in fact it was covered with tables, benches, and couches. It was a similar setup behind her as well, with chairs behind several table going along what was more than likely a food court. She knew for certain that this was a good place for her to execute her ambush.

There was cover and concealment with many different avenues of escape should things go sideways on her. But she had no intention of running, not anymore. It was time to fight.

As she waited she heard the familiar soft footsteps coming right towards her position from the hall that she's entered this plaza like opening. First she an odd dull reddish glow in the door frame as the figure walked to within sight for the first time. She could just barely make out the figure's silhouette in the door frame as they cautiously surveyed the scene. The red dot of light moved forward with the pitch black figure right behind it, and then she got a picture perfect view of her stalker when the window lit up with another bolt of lightning. She was stunned at what she saw.

He wasn't one of the uniformly equipped soldiers she'd fought and gotten knocked out by in the forest. No, this person almost had a barbaric aura about him. His clothes were made up of a leather jacket that came down to past his hips and his long hair was tied in dreadlocks. His beard was long, and not military at all. And in his hands he carried a pistol looking weapon that seemed too advanced a piece of tech for a savage like him to possess. Then the thought that he might not even be human entered her mind, but what she saw couldn't be an alien. But she took control of her mind with the tactical mindset that her years of training and experience had taught her to utilize. She had the element of surprise, she had the high ground, and she was desperate. Those were enough advantages to make her decision about what to do. She gripped her piece of metal pipe and tightly and looked back at the person walking into the room and waited for him to come within reach. And soon he did, but as she was about to jump at him a bolt of red slammed into her cover and she jumped in surprise and fell back as another bolt tore up into the ceiling from below. He saw her, and the battle was on.

She ran over to one of the table and grabbed it and tossed it onto its side. She was right by the stairs, and could hear the loud footsteps of the guy running up towards her. Another bolt slammed next to her head and she ducked down behind the steel table and felt the table electrify from another hit and decided enough was enough. She picked it up and charged down with a loud battle cry.

She threw herself down the stairs and felt a solid blow slam the table into her chest, she fell back onto the ground and swung her weapon blindly. The pipe hit the pistol just as it went off again, launching it out to the left and into the ground floor. The man seemed a bit surprised that she'd done that which gave her time to lash out with her legs and kicked him in the gut and caused him to stumble back and hit the wall. She managed to get back up and threw herself into the attack seeing an advantage. She swung the piped overhanded, but the man spun around, making her miss and knocked the pipe free from her hands with a kick to the arm and then easily blocked a right hook and left jab that he used to grab onto her arms and spun around and tossed out into the floor, smashing onto a table that fell over as she felt the breath knocked out of her. He calmly walked down the steps to see her struggling to her feet to face him. She stood ready within a few seconds and launched herself towards the assailant with a furious attack. She launched a strike combo that was a mainstay in the Advanced CQB Training School on Tauron where she'd excelled. But the combo was blocked with ease as she now tried countering the flurry of quick powerful jabs and hooks that caught her in the chest, gut, and head several times. But she'd taken worse, and stayed on her feet. So she tried attacking again, this time starting with a kick to the ankles that he returned with a block with his opposite leg and brought the back of his hand up and smacked her right across the face. She felt the blood start to dribble down her nose and lips from the blow and tasted the nasty gritty taste of her own blood as she tried to get to her feet. But when she finally turned back around to see her assailant, she greeted with the sight of him holding his weapon aimed right at her, but this time, there was no cover, and she wasn't fast enough to dodge the red bolt that struck her center mass. Her body launched back and fell against a couch and toppled it onto its back as she fought desperately for a few seconds before she blacked out.

"Sheppard," Ronon said, wiping a dribble of blood from his nose that he'd taken when she'd first attacked him, "I got her."

"Nice job, we'll have someone down to get her back in the brig," the radio responded, "She any trouble?"

"She put up a better fight than you do," Ronon said, holstering his weapon an walking over to the unconscious Colonial.

"Oh very funny," Sheppard growled.

Ronon smirked at his own joke and crouched next to the young woman and just ook some time to examine his now knocked out quarry. What he noticed immediately was that she looked very much like Malena, his wife that perished on Sateda, but with black hair and in a uniform. The memory of her death in the hospital spiked through his mind in a split second, raising memories he' thought he'd moved on from. He turned away from her, sensing that to continue looking at her would only bring that painful time of his life back. And besides, he had a feeling that there would be more pressing concerns to deal with here on Kobol.

USS Apollo, Shadowing Kobol Expedition Fleet

The Apollo had retaken its position where it was needed, watching over a group of Colonial ships that was looking for Kobol, where the SGC had already beaten them to it and was in a standoff with a larger Colonial force on the planet. Colonel Ellis hadn't lost any fighters, thankfully, and was able to simply have Enterprise beam him some more missiles, fuel, and rail gun ammunition while they were there. And his ship had also scored five more kills to add to its already legendary status as one of the most successful ships in the fleet. But now it was back to babysitting. That meant their sensors were tuned into the surrounding space to watch for the characteristic signature of the Colonial FTL drives.

But those sensors were capable of detecting other things, including power signatures. And there was one signature that was showing up where there hadn't been one before.

"Colonel," Major Marks called out.

"What is it Major?"

"I've got a power signature emanating from a planet on the very edge of my range."

"Planet based or ship based?"

"Planet based sir, P5X-234, the Stargate is supposed to be buried, the SGC hadn't been able to lock on."

"If we go and take a peak will we be out of range of the Colonial formation?"

"No sir," the man responded, "And the Colonials seem to be moving towards this planet so they'll be coming further within our range."

"Alright, helmsman take us into hyperspace. Let's see what's on that planet."

"Yes sir."

In a split second the Apollo made the jump to the planet and saw a habitable world that was definitely the source of their power signature. The source of it was right within the confines of a large city that seemed to be home to thousands of humans. But there were no other power signatures showing up, all except for one.

"Contact! I'm reading a single craft on the planet, make it a Pyramid Ship," the major cried out.

"A Pyramid ship?" Ellis asked, "What's it doing out here?"

"No idea sir. But its power signature is barely registering, I don't think that it's here on its own accord."

"Well let's find out what and who they are, open a channel."

With a few taps on the keyboard the signal went out and Ellis went over to the screen and saw that the hail had yet to be answered. But after a few second the screen materialized into the form of a single man wearing the golden trappings of Jaffa armor, but his fore head was not showing the characteristic emblem of a Jaffa's former false god. No, this was a Gou'ald.

"I am Deimac, the last of the System Lords. State your business or be gone."

How's that for an ending? Thanks for being patient ladies and gents, I've been trying to find time to write this out and get it posted but let's face it, school is way up higher than fan fiction on my list of things to do. But hey, I got it up didn't I? And I've also got the next chapter of Stargate 117 in the works and nearly done. So that should follow shortly.

Next Chapter Preview: The battle for the second ZPM is on, and on Kobol the Colonials and Taur'i meet in the worst of circumstances, so what'll happen?