A/N: Hi peeps, I know it's been a while and I'm sorry. Unfortunately, I'm experiencing some writer's block at the moment. Yesterday I spent over an hour staring at a blinking cursor on an empty page. If this chapter sounds forced it's probably because it was.
"I'm telling you, Sheppard, if we manage to power up that outpost the scientific advancements we'd be able to achieve just from the sensor readings alone would be measured in years if not decades in the fields of Astro- and quantum physics, not to mention the immediate…"
John's eyes started to glaze over as the two Atlantis Expedition members walked from the change rooms to the gate room, with a quick stop at the Tower's main armory. Sheppard winked at the cute brunette Staff Sergeant on shift as she handed over a P-90 and was rewarded with a coy smile. Rodney at this point had wound down enough to follow the brief exchange.
"You weren't listening at all, were you?" the Canadian realized with a frown.
The messy-haired Colonel shrugged, quickly checking that a round was chambered in the SMG before flicking the safety on and ascending the few stairs that led to the gate room.
"Rodney, how many times has this exact dialogue played out in the last three years between us?"
McKay looked on as if he'd swallowed something sour and grabbed the pelican case from a waiting Zelenka.
"Never mind" he growled, not bothering to thank his Czech colleague.
The team bantered a little while the gate powered up, and Sheppard made eye contact with Elizabeth before they departed. With any luck, Rodney would unravel the mysteries of this latest Ancient outpost before noon and they'd be back for this night's special, which was meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
Several hours later…
The team did make it back in time, but not for reasons any of them considered reasonable. Ronon Dex, their newest, and possibly most unstable member, was sporting a respectable shiner, while Teyla walked with a noticeable limp.
Weir was already making her way down the stairs, feeling a sense of foreboding as she took in the team's physical appearance.
"What happened?" she asked much like a mother would when a child got into a scuffle. Her eyes searched for the pelican case, almost desperately so. "Where is the ZPM?"
"It was a setup," Sheppard explained a few minutes later, holding an ice pack to a goose egg just above his right eye. McKay swallowed hard. "The outpost was authentically Ancient, but the data on its purpose was doctored. The logs were made up by the Wraith to lure us in with a power module." The Doctor grimaced at the reminder. "God, I'm so stupid."
Weir looked back at Sheppard, who looked just as grim.
"After we powered up the outpost with the ZPM the Wraith attacked in force. Teyla, Ronin, and I were cut off from the complex almost immediately. It was a miracle none of us were taken."
Weir glanced back at Rodney, who was being comforted by their resident Athosian. Weir couldn't help but notice how supportive Teyla was of her friends and even complete strangers. The woman was a born leader, and not for the first time was she glad they'd happened upon her back when they'd begun to explore the larger galactic community.
Rodney composed himself quickly. "I heard the gunfire and pulled up the telemetry on the outside sensors. The outpost used to have point defense systems but those have been gone for Millennia. Instead, I tried to boot up the shield emitters. The ones by the entrance had been compromised by the elements. It took a minute to reroute to a backup power supply so that I could extract the ZPM and keep the shields up, but before I could actually grab it the Wraith got inside."
She could see the host of emotions playing across his face.
"They pushed me back towards the rear of the outpost and I barely got the containment shield in the main test chamber raised in time."
Weir leaned forward; eyes closed, mentally visualizing the play-by-play explanation the team provided. "Rodney, were you able to see which Wraith took the ZPM?"
The Canadian nodded, his guilt instantly replaced by anger.
"It was Todd" he spat.
oOo
"All right, if I were a three-foot-tall magical creature with a Hat fetish and an aptitude for household charms suddenly hell-bent on world domination, where would I hide my secret base?" Harry asked the room, tapping a pen off his forehead rhythmically.
Their lead at the mirror SGC had evaporated when they found a thoroughly trashed NID safe house with several dead agents inside. The news kept getting better because there were Goa'uld symbiotes wrapped around the dead guys' necks according to the autopsy reports O'Neill had forwarded them.
"Inside a dormant Volcano," Tonks nodded sagely, sitting on the couch at the Potter's cottage with her arms crossed. JP shook his head, clearly in disagreement. "Nah, Dark side of the moon for sure."
Harry sighed. "No, already checked there."
The room fell silent.
"Yeah, maybe I should talk to Dumbledore," the wizard concluded, not really wanting to involve the old man in this latest speed bump in his life.
Harry tracked down Dumbledore in Mallorca, sitting at the beach sporting a garish Hawaiian Shirt and mismatched shorts that did nothing to hide his pasty chicken legs.
"Mr. Potter!" the bearded Wizard greeted delightfully. "What a pleasure seeing you here." Despite having seen far more of Albus than he'd ever wanted to, Harry couldn't help but grin. The man had fought two dark lords over the span of almost seventy years. It was good seeing him enjoy himself.
Harry took a seat on a vacant beach chair and a cute muggle girl promptly supplied him with a beer.
"Hello, sir. It's good to see you away from that damp old castle for once." Harry couldn't see the older man's eyes past the large polarized sunglasses, but he was sure that they were twinkling like the sunlight of the Mediterranean sea stretching past the horizon a few feet in front them.
"Indeed it is. And all thanks to yourself. I honestly did not think I'd live to see the downfall of Tom Riddle, let alone be able to retire afterward."
Harry laughed, genuinely happy for his former mentor's stuntdouble. "Think nothing of it, sir. It was my pleasure."
Albus chuckled before taking a pull from the straw submerged in his pink umbrella garnished drink.
"Yes, well I'm sure that you only happened to meet me here purely by chance then?"
The young Potter laughed again, looking a bit embarrassed. "Actually, I've run into a bit of a snag and accidentally left the Malfoys house elf for the American Muggles to find. Naturally, they decided to stick a Goa'uld into the thing."
Albus involuntarily sprayed his drink all over the lounger and himself.
oOo
They moved in swiftly and with purpose. Within an hour they had routed the muggles from Godric's Hollow, killing a few but generally just ensuring that the small collection of houses and other buildings were secure. All except one. Noise mitigation wards were discreetly placed around the structure early on, ensuring the occupants would remain unaware of the ruckus unfolding outside.
Several police vehicles raced towards the scene and a rather short and one-sided firefight broke out between the Bobbies and Dobby's magically enhanced forces in the main fairway.
The unfortunate constables did manage to get the word out over the radio that something was indeed very wrong here, and within a day the British Army had cordoned off the area in a ten-mile radius. But not before losing a number of light armored vehicles, including a Range Rover that was now garnishing the bell tower of the local Anglican Church.
That fight had been a bit more even, but with the edge still going to the Magical Aliens. A few houses near the skirmish had been set alight and continued to smolder the following morning.
As a result, dozens of powerful Challenger II main battle tanks were now dug into the reverse slopes of the rolling hills around the sleepy community, their 120mm rifled cannons trained towards targets that seemed to be able to appear and disappear at a moment's notice. Several Cobra and Gazelle attack helicopters buzzed overhead, with the occasional Tornado Fighter Bomber screaming by.
The unusual radio chatter had been picked up by the Americans, and a group of 'specialists' was now on-site to assist with the developing situation. The fact that these individuals were US Air Force and decked out with strange weapons was not lost on the soldiers.
With all this excitement happening around them, the Potters were rather oblivious, that is until the British Ministry threw up the wide-area anti-apparition and port key wards after finally realizing that this incident wasn't strictly Muggle in nature. Of course, what they didn't know was that the enemy was able to ring in using a cloaked Al'Kesh hovering in low Earth orbit overhead.
"What the hell was that?" the young man asked, looking up from the Deadpool comic he was reading on the sofa. James up until that moment had been sitting in the recliner reading the prophet, while Lily was in the dining room working on a puzzle.
Harry spread the curtain covering the window overlooking the small but neatly kept front yard of the Potter home and peeked outside. Next, he turned on the teli and tuned into BBC 1, pulling his not quite parent's attention from the smoke billowing from the neighbor's house and the cloaked figures that were lurking outside their yard.
"We continue our 24/7 coverage of the situation unfolding in the small town of Godric's Hollow this morning. The army has cordoned off a sizable swath of land around the small villa where suspected Irish Separatists have fought numerous gun battles with the authorities. Prime Minister…"
"Irish Separatists?" James repeated in confusion. "How have we not heard any of this?"
Harry tuned out the rest of the anchor's report, instead moving towards his expanded bag. After a bit of shuffling around, he located what he was after.
The device was spherical and about the size of a baseball. He'd affectionately dubbed them Kinos. The blueprints were part of the repository, and they made darn good surveillance tools.
The little ball zipped up the chimney and out the top of the stack, rapidly climbing to about five hundred feet and tagging dozens of hostiles on the IFF, some of them holding very distinct staff blast weapons.
As it continued climbing the sensor sphere picked up the muggle military positions and assigned them blue tags.
Harry observed from his optical implant but quickly produced a spare holo emitter that had been kicking around inside his bag along with a half-ton of other useless crap so that his not quite parents and current hosts could follow along more easily.
After a few seconds, the device directly received the Kino's feed, showing the Potters just how bad their neighborhood had gotten.
A dense cluster of red circled by light blue, all superimposed on a live areal feed of the town and surrounding areas.
"Floo is down," Lily stated, already suspecting but having tried anyways. Godric's Hollow had been home to a number of Old magical Families over the centuries, but over the last few decades most had moved or passed on until only the Potters remained. And they were fairly sure this whole thing revolved around them somehow.
Harry quickly calculated the odds of 'walking away' from a hypothetical confrontation between them and what seemed to be a sizable force of Dobby'ulds best fighters. Coming up short he asked his quasi parents;
"How attached are you to this place?" They looked at him with a mix of worry and dread. "On a scale of one to ten I mean," he clarified.
"Harry…" James growled, knowing exactly where this conversation was going.
"Like, are you married to it?"
"Harry!" Lily stated in a dangerous tone, oddly similar to that of her husband. It was uncanny.
"- or were you thinking about doing some renovating in the near future?"
"HARRY!" They practically shouted in unison.
"OK, OK. I'll level with you. I may have a teeny itty-bitty Naquadah enhanced fission device squirreled away in my bag for situations like this one." He leaned over towards where said bag was once again innocently resting against the wall.
"Oh, did you hear that?" He furrowed his eyebrows in mock concentration, then surprise. "There it is again! There's a voice coming from my bag! It says; Use meeeee!"
Both Potters groaned in frustration. "Harry, no!"
The dimension traveler crossed his arms and huffed in annoyance. "Fine, but unless you have some sort of brilliant plan of getting us out of here…" he paused to make a quick portkey out of a nearby slipper and clearly said "Portus," at which point nothing happened "…the only thing we can possibly do is martyr ourselves for the greater good!"
He lifted his fist close to his chest, glistening eyes staring at a brighter future or some rubbish. After a few seconds, he looked over at them. "Yeah, you're not buying it, are you?"
The Potters sighed, not sure if this slightly unhinged side of Harry was due to genetics or simply an environmental thing when he was growing up. Secretly they hoped it was the latter.
James moved to the window to assess the situation again. Outside their little cottage were dozens of cloaked figures now, all with wands drawn and visibly trying to unravel the intricate wards their son had only finished putting up a few weeks prior.
They'd abandoned stealth after spotting the Kino zipping out of the cottage a few minutes earlier.
Said wards were glowing something fierce, glowing a pale blue and shifting to yellow in a few places. Not unexpected, with over a hundred wands doing the ward breaking.
"Though seriously, we can't just let them take over the town now can we?"
James backed off, letting his wife by to satisfy her own curiosity.
"Fine, what did you have in mind?"
…
Ten minutes later…
"Damn it, Harry. This house has been in the Potter family for nigh fourhundred years. I can't believe you're going to turn it into Rubble!" James hollered from the hallway, busy shrinking down a Console table that had been gifted to his grandfather by the Duke of Gloucester.
"Actually…," the Raven haired Wizard hollered back, equally tied up stuffing the fine china into a cushioned bottomless bag, "…there won't be any rubble. The blast will vaporize the entire town and a good chunk of the surrounding countryside. It should be bigger than Malfoy Crater Lake!"
The last part sounded cheerful.
"Merlin, Harry. You realize that there are some really important people buried in Godric's Hollow! People like the Peverells and the Dumbledores. Albus is going to be furious when he finds out." Lilly shouted from the sitting room, wrestling with a magical painting of an old Potter ancestor.
"Acceptable losses." He casually dismissed. "Besides, they're already dead!"
A few more minutes of unsuccessful dissuasion attempts passed before the trio met up in the living room, bags at the ready. The house was bare, with obvious holes where the muggle and magical appliances had been and faded wallpaper behind the frames. The Family Safe had been pried from the foundation and was floating next to James like some grotesque mangled square balloon.
"OK, Harry, what's your Grand plan of getting us out of here?"
The exothermic reaction-loving Wizard produced the football-sized device that would invert the landscape in about two minutes and armed it, leaving it on the floor. Next, he fished out an hourglass-shaped device.
"Is that what I think it is?" Lily asked, not liking the idea.
"Yup!"
"Son of a bitch," James swore. "I never even considered using one like that. But son, time turners only go back twelve hours at the most. Somehow I think these people have been here a bit longer."
Harry grinned. "This one is special." And indeed it was. Harry had used his ancient know-how and tweaked the device. It wouldn't have more than a day's range, and for some reason, it also had a loop setting which he'd coined the Groundhog Button, but the thing would take them back to hopefully before this whole mess started.
He looped the chain around everyone. "Ready?"
They nodded, trying not to look too nostalgic. The Time-Turner hummed away, and their surroundings with it. Blurry figures of their past selves moved to and fro, until finally they were deposited back to the day before.
The trio left the Cottage behind but was surprised when they ran into both Sara and JP down the street, who were both carrying bags of baked goods from the bakery down the street.
"Mom, Dad? Harry?"
They looked a bit odd, packed like mules, with James still holding the Stone encased magical safe close by.
Harry pulled out that portkey from earlier…erm, later, and asked everyone to hold on.
The Potters obliged and found themselves in his spacious penthouse in London.
The kids got busy making breakfast, while Lily and James dumped their worldly possessions on Harry's immaculate and never used white sectional.
"Well, that explains why Sara and JP never showed up yester- I mean today."
James and Lily looked none too pleased, essentially realizing that there was never a chance of talking him out of it at all. The timeline had already been changed by their past selves.
Wonderful, they were homeless.
oOo
Tracking down Dobby'uld over the last few weeks had been a fruitless endeavor, so Harry actually welcomed the open attack on him and his Family. The reason was clear. The bad guys were in Godric's Hollow, and therefore easily found and more importantly, Imperio'd.
The Elf was a sneaky one because Harry was unable to glean the location of his hideout using Veritaserum, torture, the Imperius, or even Teal'c's socks after a week-long away mission.
The man was either incredibly good at resisting torture or simply unable to divulge the information due to magic. Harry could think of a few ways to achieve the latter thanks to Voldemort's memories, but whatever 'this' was must be house-elf magic related.
So he did the next best thing. Strap a Naquadah enhanced bomb to the chap and order him to report back to the Boss. Of course, Harry could have just tagged along, but sending these gift packages was just so much better.
Watching the Telly that evening both his former hometown and for some reason a rundown industrial area North of Cleveland made the news because of wanton destruction.
So that's where their secret hideout was! Wait until he told Tonks!
oOo
A few days later, Harry was hanging out with Tonks and Sara in muggle London when he realized that they were being followed. Playing along he managed to cast a mirage glamour charm whose point of reference was Tonks's shoulder.
The image would remain at that exact location no matter where the pretty metamorph went. Of course, it only worked for thirty seconds because she walked right past a light post, meaning his illusion walked through it.
His tail was officially spooked but Harry had already gotten into position. A lightning-fast stunner should have been all it took, but the damn guy was nearly as good as he was. A few curses were traded on the busy street, but Harry lost his concentration when he had to shield a muggle from an intentionally cast cutting hex.
In the time it took to re-acquire the target the sodding bastard had disappeared in a bright white light.
"Son of a…"
oOo
Harry groaned at all the extra effort he had to resort to in order to deal with Dobby'uld. His lack of sophisticated sensors in this mirror dimension had forced him on a bit of a treasure hunt into Pegasus by means of an extensively modified Goa'uld Cargo Ship. The very same he'd taken from the Ha'tak on Cheyenne mountain.
The Potters (still homeless) had tagged along, making this some twisted version of a family field trip he supposed. Tonks was there also because she just happened to be due for some time off and nothing screamed vacation like tagging along with Harry on some asinine mission into the next galaxy.
The expanded ship hummed with barely contained energy as it hurled through the black and blue corridor of hyperspace.
As for their destination?
Asuras.
Yeah, Harry hadn't been thrilled to find out that the Ancient's pet project had survived. And by sheer dumb luck (or bad luck in this case) his favorite Atlantis expedition team had stumbled upon them. But the kicker, the ultimate kicker was that McKay managed to fiddle with their base code enough that they could now make changes themselves.
Of course, they immediately decided that they didn't like Humans, and now on top of life-sucking bug people, Evil Snakes, AND psychotic Ascended Energy Beings from another Galaxy there were millions of Killer Terminator 3 machines gunning for Earth.
And that was just in the old reality. Armed with this new information Harry immediately plotted a course for this Mirror dimension's Asuras, intent on 'Borrowing' their minty new city-ship. Atlantis was trashed after ten millennia of sitting in salt water anyway. A veritable Katrina city-ship. Nobody wanted that. He'd seen the lower levels during his last visit to Pegasus. They were a right mess.
The Potters and company were lounging in the large open area aft of the pilot and co-pilot's seats on some transfigured furniture, bored out of their gourd. It had been five hours since they'd left Earth, and Harry was still busy tinkering with the Hyperdrive to coax every ounce of speed from the strained device.
Their latest ETA was a little over thirty-six hours to Asuras, IF the thing didn't explode and kill them all.
"So what are you hoping to accomplish again?" his not quite father asked, still a bit confused about how trying to find a homicidal House Elf had turned into the biggest, most ambitious case of Grand Theft Auto ever attempted.
Harry slotted a blue crystal into place, lighting up the whole matrix, and double-checked his tablet. a fifteen percent increase in output with only a marginal increase to the chances of sudden and unintentional death. He'd take it!
"I need sensors powerful enough to track a cloaked Al'Kesh that's most likely sitting in Earth's orbit. Those bastards have Asgard beam tech, so there's no way it's on a cargo ship like this one. Trust me, I've tried.
Ringing in didn't work, and I don't have any pull with the Asgard over here." he stated, referring to this side of the quantum mirror. It was getting a bit confusing as to whom he'd met where.
"So the next best thing is stealing a flying city?" James concluded, watching as his criminal son rushed by and popped the access panel off at the front of the ship. "Yes, I can definitely see how that was the next logical step."
"Bite me," Harry muttered, arms tangled in a multitude of wires dangling from under the cargo ship's cockpit. Damn Goa'uld piece of trash. The wiring on these things is atrocious.
Lily and Tonks watched in amusement from the couch, both cradling glasses of wine while JP and Sara were playing exploding snap on the coffee table.
The plan was simple. Infiltrate the Asuran Home World, steal their city-ship, and leave a ZPM rigged to overload as payment. That way those blithering idiots over at Atlantis (whom he hadn't even met) couldn't repeat what they'd done in his verse.
He'd noticed a while back that without his influence the SGC ran a bit behind on events here. Which suited him fine. It meant with a bit of strategic intervention this galaxy had a lot fewer BS villains he needed to fight, save the Homicidal Elf he'd inadvertently unleashed on humanity.
But he was fixing that. All they needed to do was reach Pegasus.
Piece of cake, really.
Thirty-three hours and twenty minutes later…
A bright streak of light raced across the highly developed cityscape of Asuras. The cargo ship was awash in fire. The plan had gone sideways from the moment they entered the system. The hyperdrive decided it had had enough and spectacularly failed.
Oddly enough it was when power was cut that it decided to act out.
Fortunately, the thing did give them advanced warning instead of just blowing up, meaning Harry managed to jettison it and make it about five thousand klicks before it blew. The Cargo ship took a huge beating, and it was a miracle that the thing was still intact at all.
The force of the blast had knocked them off course and into the upper atmosphere of the planet. That, coupled with the fact that he'd pretty much burnt out the sub-lights accelerating away, meant that they were basically falling rather than flying at this point.
About the only good thing was that the EMP had ruined whatever the Replicators had in orbit for surveillance, meaning they wouldn't be eating a drone or ten in the next few minutes.
Not that it mattered.
"Merlin Harry, I thought you were good with muggle machines!" Tonks hollered over the klaxon of alarms wailing away.
Cursing in Ancient the Wizard continued fighting with the controls, not knowing that half the flight surfaces were shot to hell.
"Get into the escape pods!" he hissed through clenched teeth. "I'll guide them using the neural link."
The Potters looked hesitant until he added. "I'll be right behind you! There's no way I'm dying on this tub!"
Harry pinged the surface and found a good spot for the pods to land. In the time it took him to do that the others had jettisoned out the bottom, the metal cylinders tossed around by the hot gasses flying past the ship.
The wizard half ran, half stumbled towards the last pod, and punched it moments later. It was a very disturbing feeling being stuck in a pitch-black metal box plummeting towards the ground, with nothing but your own loud breathing echoing through the cramped space. It made him long for the tender mercies of Portkey travel.
The cargo ship continued merrily on its way, clipping one of the thousand or so skyscrapers before thoroughly wrecking a picturesque park space a few miles away.
With a high-pitched whistle, his pod slammed into an empty plaza, kicking up a fair amount of dust.
Harry groaned in pain before ejecting his wand and vanishing the hatch on the pod, then crawling out. He was more or less in one piece, and even better, relatively close to the others according to his IFF tracker. Pulling one of the odd-looking Anti-replicator Rifles from his bottomless bag he set off, the impossibly long cat-walk to the city-ship already in view.
Sara moaned, a small gash on her brow. James supported her as the group moved away from the landing site. Though crash might be a more apt description. JP had already dispatched one of these machines with a shot from the weapons Harry had supplied and was currently on point. Tonks watched their back, while Lily rummaged through her bag looking for a potion that would cure her daughter of her sudden concussion.
They passed a massive window overlooking the snowflake-shaped ship they needed to get to. Unfortunately, that was about as far as they got.
A half dozen Replicators rounded the corner and two of their number promptly exploded into a fine dust as JP opened up. The rest of the group took cover against the side of the wall, bright white flashes zipping past with alarming accuracy.
Behind them the corridor they just came from swarmed with more of the humanoid machines. Tonks quickly found herself a little out of her depth using the odd weapon and was tempted to switch to her wand.
The Kull armor Harry had insisted they all wear was a godsend, as the machines had very good aim and would have stunned them long ago. In the few seconds since the firefight had begun almost all of them had been hit at least once.
"We need to find an exit!" James hollered, firing over Tonks's head to help her out. Their foes were beginning to adapt. It now took two shots to de-molecularize them instead of the one. Harry warned them that might happen.
Lily made a snap decision and blasted the window, giving them their way out. She and Sara quickly located and unshrunk the brooms they'd stowed before the mission.
The Replicators by that point were barely even phased by the blue pulses of energy and pressed their advantage. Right until a seemingly solid wall of red burnt clay blocks materialized out of nowhere and blocked their path.
The group had bought themselves the precious few seconds needed to mount their brooms, kick-off and were now racing in tight formation towards the control tower.
In the distance, they could see a small speck being chased by three olive green ships. Harry, it seemed, had a similar idea. Bright golden lights flew around the ships and single broom rider like angry wasps.
The ships had the speed advantage, but the broom clearly won when it came to avoiding the drones fired by both parties. In a span of 30 seconds, the Puddle Jumpers had been blotted from the sky and Harry laid on the speed.
"Well that didn't go to plan," he stated once they were within earshot. The consensus was a lot of sour-looking faces and more than a few glares.
The broom flying raiding party zipped up to the tallest spire of the City and vanished the beautiful colored crystal window. Naturally, the control room was staffed.
Fearing that time was not on their side the Wizard transfigured the replicators into less hostile Rubix cubes and rushed onward to take over the facility and prep for takeoff. There was no counter against transfiguration, so the others quickly opted to do the same in favor of hefting their now useless sci-fi guns.
Fortunately, the Replicators hadn't bothered locking the critical systems down and he swiftly released the docking corridors and raised shields.
The low thrum of the engines powering up could be felt through the solid floor. A few of the closer replicators on the decks below managed to bust through the doors but were quickly transfigured by the Potters and Tonks, joining the growing pile of junk items scattered around the atrium.
He'd have to toss them out the window or into the brig in a bit.
But first, it was time to leave the Replicators a present. He produced a glowing Power Module and cast a familiar spell on it. The Red tinged crystal glowed a soft blue before disappearing.
The rigged power source popped into existence in Harry's old pod on the planet's surface. The replicators registered this new and most disturbing energy reading right away and dispatched their closest units to investigate.
The rumbling became more violent now as the engines began over-matching gravity's hold on the massive structure. The group watched as the surrounding buildings shrunk, then disappeared from view altogether.
The silver shield flared golden for a few moments as dozens of Jumpers fired drones at their own city.
Harry would have enjoyed watching the take-off as well but was busy fiddling with another contraption he'd pulled from his pouch. It was a modified field generator which he'd re-purposed to emit a powerful pulse similar to the Anti Replicator Weapons. That particular frequency he'd kept in reserve in order to hit all the remaining replicators on the city-ship simultaneously.
Without much hesitation, he unleashed the pulse. To be honest it was a bit anticlimactic.
The ship by now was in low orbit and still accelerating, no longer burdened by the massive volume of air around its macaroon-shaped shield had to displace at high speed.
On the surface the ZPM hummed softly, bathing the inside of the pod in red light.
The city jumped to Hyperspace. And the world burned.
oOo
Atlantis 2.0 emerged from Hyperspace with a blinding flash, startling the command crews of numerous vessels in Earth's orbit.
A few of the bulky gray Air Force ships trawling around managed to condense into a defensive formation, their orders probably relayed by an angry and very nervous fleet admiral. The city-ship paid the 'fleet' no heed and quickly inverted itself as it raced towards the atmosphere.
Its shields glowed ever brighter as the massive construct began skimming the upper parts of the atmosphere, encountering stray hydrogen and helium Particles…as well as something slightly bigger.
"What the hell was that?" The green-eyed wizard asked aloud, taking note of the minuscule power draw and the bright flash of light towards their left.
The others shrugged, equally clueless.
Ironically the very Al'Kesh Harry and company were about to start searching for had been unlucky enough to occupy the exact same physical space as the Lantian Vessel screaming by at about sixty kilometers per second. The results were not unlike a car windshield hitting a particularly fat cricket on the motorway on a warm summer day.
So in a way, the plan had worked. Just not because of the reasons they originally stole the ship for. Whatever, the result was the same.
The city continued racing planet side at considerable speed. The entire tower shook worse than when they'd taken off. Everyone was hanging onto the railings, while Harry firmly grasped the console. Not that he needed to be there. The city was essentially flying through his neural link, controlled with but a thought.
"Son, I think you need to slow down a little before we go splat." James hollered, holding his wife. Lily had never enjoyed flying and looked more than a bit queasy. Sara and JP had grins bigger than ANY he'd seen previously, and Tonks' wasn't far off either.
He couldn't fault them, riding an entire city down to Earth after a three-day field trip to Pegasus didn't happen every day.
Over the last few days, Harry had carefully considered where to park his new house, taking into consideration temperature, humidity, and of course the amount of ambient magic around to help power the ridiculously overpowered wards he would add to keep both the muggles and magicals' grubby mitts off his stuff.
Oddly enough the ley lines on this version of Earth did not match his, meaning he wasn't limited to the South China Sea or Alaska.
In fact, that seemed to be a nice convergence right over an Atoll in the south Pacific. Better yet it was thousands of miles from the nearest country of note, in this case, Australia. And those guys were about as harmless as the Canadians.
At an altitude of fifteen kilometers above sea level, the engines kicked into overdrive, slowing the city at a drastic rate while increasing the G forces on the few occupants substantially. With the shield up and an aquatic landing they could have landed more forcefully than what he was currently attempting, but he was reluctant to wreck the fragile coral and picturesque beaches around his new home.
The ring-shaped island shimmered down below, with bright turquoise water in the lagoon and palm trees speckling the brilliant white surface. Sensor readings showed it was deep enough to land in.
The city eased into its future resting place and gently kissed the water. At the scale this was occurring it was still a rather violent process, seeing how he couldn't cut the engines until the lower levels were fully submerged and the ship attained near full buoyancy. Massive plumes of churning water kicked up sediment and sand on the lagoon floor.
The Engine hum faded and everyone picked themselves off the floor. According to the map they were somewhere between French Polynesia and the Cook Islands.
Or pretty much paradise.
The city bobbed up and down a few times, encased in its semi-translucent bubble. It wouldn't be hard for the muggles to track something as large as Atlantis and figure out where it was going to make landfall. He'd need to ward against their satellites and new starship sensor tech, and until he was sure they couldn't target the city the shield was staying up.
oOo
"So, any news from him?" Jackson asked. Harry had been off the Radar since the brain aneurysm causing bug incident of Vagonbrei over a month ago. The Ori meanwhile have been suspiciously quiet during that time. Naturally, something else came up to occupy the SGC's time on the 'top of things to worry' list.
Over the course of about two weeks dozens if not hundreds of Goa'uld worlds, under the control of both the System Lords and Anubis's had been attacked by the Replicators. It seems some of them had slipped through the net during that OP in the Asgard Galaxy, and now they were back with a vengeance.
"Well, it's not like we can rely on him for everything. We're professionals, right?" Sam asked the room, waiting for Landry to finish screaming at someone over the phone. That man had some serious rage issues.
Teal'c nodded in agreement, quiet as usual. Mitchell shrugged.
The good general joined and sat at the head of the table.
"SG-1," he addressed the temporary team of four. Vala was suspiciously absent at the moment and had been for as long as Harry.
"Sir." As one the group rose. Landry had only been in command for a few months, and things were still a bit awkward around him. You know, when he wasn't screaming at Harry or Vala.
The briefing lasted about ten minutes. The short and sweet version involved them heading to a recently fallen Goa'uld world in order to gather intel on why the darn things were attacking the Milky Way in force.
Twelve hours later saw the earth vessel Odyssey slip from a purplish-blue tear in space. The ship hummed with energy, its engines pushing it towards the undeveloped backwater planet. Said planet contained a lucrative Naquadah mining operation of Lord Yu's, and valuable enough to have a permanent Ha'tak presence in orbit.
Or had.
Bits and pieces of what remained of those ships now harmlessly bounced off the Tau'ri cruiser's shields as it neared the planet.
"Wow, looks like Yu fought tooth and nail for this place," Cameron muttered from beside the captain's chair. Tok'ra Intel placed the number of defensive vessels at four to five, based on fleet rotation schedules.
The amount of debris floating around suggested a number closer to a dozen.
"Sir, I'm not reading any life signs on the surface, but lots of movement." A bridge crewman informed Colonel Emerson, who nodded in thanks.
"All right SG-1, we'll beam you down a few clicks from the old settlement. Stay out of sight and activate your emergency transponders the second you feel the need to exfil. Good luck."
The three humans and Jaffa looked unphased and were quickly engulfed by a bright blinding light.
Emerson shook his head. He was happy to stay away from ground ops, thank you very much.
oOo
On the surface, the team moved quickly, aware that the replicators would be drawn to the high energy levels the Asgard beam tech emitted.
The terrain was heavily wooded, with no paths or trails to make the repositioning any less strenuous. Ten hectic minutes later and they began to slow down, trading speed for stealth. Fewer twigs were stepped on, heavy breathing slowed to a more sedate rhythm that couldn't be picked up past a few scant yards. The bugs didn't exactly have ears, but their sensors could still pick up audio waves.
Hopefully, their low-tech weapons and radios would deter them from perusing the team. They'd forgone the Zat's for the less subtle and substantially louder M9's. The mine took another twenty minutes to reach.
Cam relied on Teal'c and Sam to select a good spot to visually make out the settlement. It proved to be harder than expected for the seasoned pilot, who was still somewhat green when it came to fieldwork.
He'd completed the SERE evasion course (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) at Fairchild, but that focused on getting away from the enemy, not towards them.
The team had been very patient with him, however, and he was learning quickly. Just not when it came to sparring with Teal'c. The Jaffa was a strict and unforgiving teacher, he recalled, noting the soreness of his leg days after their last session.
"Looks like they set up shop all right," Sam muttered, observing the towering Replicator construct through her field binoculars. The structure (if it could be called that) was a good four stories tall and radiated light along with a strange purring sound.
The odd individual replicator would pass close to the construct every now and then, but keeping out of sight should be relatively easy considering they'd set it up the ruins of the slave population's village.
That meant plenty of concealment to hide behind.
"Maybe it's their version of a miner. The bugs must be really efficient at getting minerals out of the ground." Cam suggested.
"Well, whatever its purpose, it should be big enough to connect to and hack." The Major muttered.
Generally getting close to their biggest and most menacing-looking creation was considered a bad strategy, but in this case, it was logical.
The mobile units could attack and were rarely alone. They also liked to swarm their prey. Not exactly ideal for plugging a laptop into.
No, the building-shaped replicator was the only sensible option really.
Over the next ten minutes, the team silently crept into position, waiting for the last rays of sunlight to disappear over the nearby snowcapped mountain.
The long shadows were excellent to hide in if the enemy were anything other than machines with infrared sensors. Well, at least it made them 'feel' safer.
Of course, the poor light was also the deciding factor in why Jackson tripped over a rusty old bucket, making more noise at that exact moment than the entire Macy's thanksgiving day parade marching through Manhattan.
"Seriously?" Cam hissed, while the good doctor had the decency to at least look ashamed.
Needless to say, the Replicators were drawn to them like flies to shit.
In orbit, the four subspace tracker signals from SG-1 winked out. Emmerson was made aware moments after and stuck around for another hour scanning the former mine site before being driven off by a Replicator ship that had emerged from Hyperspace.
