2 – A Tale of Two City Ships

(M6H-987 – Vanaheimr – 14.01.2022, 1252)

Ran was an Asgard. A female Asgard. Million of years ago, she had ascended to a higher plane of existence. Back in those days, the Asgard had still been born. Eventually, this had changed and the Asgard had begun to reproduce by means of cloning. And that had led to problems for the species. Because the Asgard made copies of copies, their DNA had degraded. They had begun searching for a cure and had eventually discovered that Humans might hold the key to fixing the damage. While the bulk of the Asgard believed that experiments on Humans were wrong, there had been a tribe of Asgard who had disagreed. They had called themselves the Vanir.

The Vanir had left for the Pegasus Galaxy to conduct their experiments. Alas for them, they had eventually gotten into a fight with the Wraith. And had lost, which had forced to them to go into hiding for thousands of years. Until in 2008, that had no longer been an option because the place where they had been hiding had gotten really toxic. After they had left their hiding place, there had been a conflict with the Tau'ri.

It was Ran who had ended that conflict by going back to being flesh-and-blood, giving the Vanir a chance of solving their genetic problems. And eventually – in 2019 – they had succeeded. The reason they had done so, was a species called the New Asurans. The New Asurans had secretly given the Vanir a ton of medical data. The original data had been about the Ancients. But there had been a second batch of data about a group of species from a distance galaxy. ~The Xivolo and their genetic creations…the Nakai, the Ursini and the Jynacko.~ It had been this information that had been the key that had unlocked the cure.

The cure had been administered to all the Vanir in less then a month, leaving them free to rebuild their civilization. Which was exactly what they had been doing. This had been made easier because of another gift from the New Asurans. Despite what people thought, Atlantis was not the only Ancient City-ship in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Called The Tower by the native people, there had been badly damaged city-ship on a primitive planet. This world had been visited by the Colonel Sheppard and his team, but had then been forgotten by the Tau'ri. When the Satedans had begun rebuilding their world, they had send a diplomatic mission to the planet to ask them to join their populations. The locals had refused. But around the time that the Vanir had found their cure, they had changed their minds.

The New Asurans had then dug up The Tower and fixed it enough to fly. While Ran suspected that it had been the New Asurans who had convinced them to leave their world, she did not have any proof. Nor did it matter. The New Asurans had given The Tower to the Vanir, who had then completed the repairs and turned it into their capital. Renamed Vanaheimr, they had used it to relocate their entire civilization to a world the Tau'ri called M6H-987. It was an ice planet that – until Vanaheimr had arrived – had lacked a Stargate. The lack of a Gate and the icy conditions meant that it was not on the Wraith's radar. Which was exactly why the Vanir had picked it.

They had arrived a week ago and had finally completed settling in today. So the Vanir were having themselves a party. Ran was standing in the Operations Center, looking down at the Gate Room. The people were dancing, eating and laughing. ~About time we got a break.~ It had been a hard couple of years. She was smiling as Lavos approached. General Lavos was a male and the commanding officer of the Vanir Defense Force.

"Madam Chancellor," Lavos said, referring to Ran by her formal title. She was the head of the civilian government of the Vanir. "Glad to see you're enjoying yourself."

"And you, general ?" She said with a smile.

"Well, there's the diplomatic mission to Atlantis coming up," Lavos began. "But I've labelled that as a tomorrow problem, as for today…" He offered her his hand. "Shall we dance, Madam Chancellor ?"

"I'd like that."

She took his hand and the two of them danced. Like the General had said, the mission to Atlantis could wait until tomorrow. Ran suspected that the Tau'ri would be very surprised when they made contact. ~Tomorrow problem, Ran, tomorrow problem.~ She smiled at the general and they continued dancing.

(Atlantis – Operations Center – 15.01.2022, 0730)

Colonel John Sheppard was reading a book with his feet on one of the control consoles. The book in question was Alexander Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. He had finished War and Peace years ago and had worked his way through seven novels since then. His latest read had been recommended by Richard Woolsey, the commander of the Atlantis Expedition. He had just turned the page when Doctor Rodney McKay came in. When he saw Sheppard, he made a face.

"You forget again, didn't you ?" Sheppard asked, while still reading.

"No, I didn't," McKay began. "I was just look for…euhm…okay, I forgot."

Sheppard smiled. Changes had been in the air aboard Atlantis for ages. One of the reasons had been a large scale mission to rescue Colonel Young and the crew of Destiny. Named the Nova Roma Expedition, this mission had seen the reactivation of a forgotten facility called the Deep Space Internet Facility. It had also seen Atlantis personnel – including Laura Cadman and Frank Levine – reassigned to other posts. But that was not the only change that had come since the Wraith Peace Treaty.

In 2019, at the celebration of ten years of peace in the Pegasus Galaxy, John Sheppard had been promoted to from Lieutenant-Colonel to Full Bird Colonel. And the extra ships that had arrived this year, were actually the second phase of beefing up the Tau'ri presence in the Pegasus Galaxy. Phase one had been the construction of a permanent Pegasus Alpha Site and Pegasus Beta Site. And these two new bases had led to more people getting reassigned.

It was the most recent round of reassignments that had thrown McKay for a loop. Evan Lorne had been promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and was the new commanding officer of the Pegasus Alpha Site, with Doctor Carson Beckett as his Chief Medical Officer and Radek Zelenka as the Chief Scientist. Zelenka had been the last to leave, which had been three days ago. And McKay kept forgetting. Which was what making Sheppard smile. ~He's still in the denial phase.~ Sheppard thought as he looked at McKay.

"Anyway….euhm…gotta go," McKay said.

McKay walked out and Sheppard turned his attention back to his book. He got several pages further before things the alarm sounded. Amelia Banks was on duty and quickly checked her controls.

"Incoming wormhole, sir," Banks said as she raised the force-field that protected the Stargate.

"We don't have any teams off-world," Sheppard said as he put the book down and his feet on the floor. He turned to Major Dorsey, who was manning one of the other consoles. "Dorsey, I want two extra security teams up here now."

"Yes, Colonel."

The security personnel already in the Gate Room had already readied their weapons. But there had been plenty of red flags to indicate that the Wraith were up to something in the last couple of months, so Atlantis was on a higher security status. Which was why both Dorsey and Sheppard had been in the Operations Center. Peter Dorsey was a British soldier. He had been promoted to his current rank in 2007 and his first assignment had been to take his team and analyze a debris field in orbit of M6R-214. This had been made easier by the fact that he had the ATA-gene and was a skilled Puddle Jumper pilot.

"Colonel, we have an incoming signal," Banks began. "It's….Vanir, sir."

Dorsey and Sheppard exchanged looks. The extra security teams arrived at that moment, as did Richard Woolsey. Dorsey gave them hands signals, while bringing Woolsey up to speed. As the teams took their positions, Sheppard turned to Banks.

"On screen," He said.

A nearby screen blinked to show a female Vanir standing in what appeared to be a duplicate of Atlantis' operations center. It took Sheppard a second to realize that this was Ran. Ran and the Atlantis Expedition had met before, but that was too long of a story to go into now. So he decided to keep it simple.

"Hello, Ran."

"Greetings, Colonel," She paused. "How are things going there ?"

"We're doing fine." Sheppard said, while Woolsey listened just outside the view of camera. "So, what's this call about ?"

"There have been some developments here. Good ones. The Vanir are ready to come out of isolation and we want to do better. So we need to have a longer conversation. Is Mister Woolsey there ?"

"Yes, I am," Woolsey said as he stepped into the view of the camera.

"Good." Ran said with a nod.

Sheppard stepped back and let Woolsey take the lead. ~Well, this is something new.~ He had a feeling that a lot more changes were about to come to Atlantis and the Pegasus Galaxy.

(Hive Ship Grand Conqueror – Command Center – 06.02.2022, 1217)

Todd – or Guide, as his fellow Wraith called him – was standing in the command center of his brand new flagship Grand Conqueror. It was one of sixteen hive ships and thirty-two cruisers in orbit of a world they had codenamed Gathering One. The planet was a lifeless chunk of rock, but it was in a strategic position. He checked the sensors, only to find them empty. The Wraith had been planning this attack for five years. And his alliance was only half of the attack force they would be using. So he was waiting for the other half to arrive.

There was a beep and he checked the sensors again. The rest of the fleet had entered range. Another sixteen hive ships and thirty-two cruisers soon dropped out of hyperspace. They would allow the new arrivals to recover for a couple of minutes. Then they would head for their target and launch an all-out attack. ~They will never see it coming.~ And if they did it right, none of their enemies would survive. The war would be short and decisive. ~And then the galaxy will be ours once again.~

As soon as the cooldown period was over, he turned his second-in-command and ordered the fleet to head out. It was time for the war to begin.